quadral

English

Alternative forms

• quadrual, quatral

Etymology

From New Latin quadrālis, from quadru- (“four-”) + -ālis.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkwɒdɹəl/

Noun

quadral (countable and uncountable, plural quadrals)

1. (grammar) A grammatical number referring to four (or more) things.
   • 2000, Greville G. Corbett, Number, page 30:

     These are the three best claims for quadrals. There are several false trails in the literature, that is, suggestions of other Austronesian languages with quadrals, which turn out in fact to have four number values not five.

   • 2003, Merilin Miljan, “Number in Estonian Sign Language”, in TRAMES, volume 7, number 3, page 207:

     Likewise, expression of quadral is accomplished in the same way by establishing specific locations or points in signing space.

   • 2006, Manfred Krifka, “A Note on the Pronoun System and the Predicate Marker in Tok Pisin”, in Form, Structure, and Grammar: A Festschrift Presented to Günther Grewendorf on Occasion of His 60th Birthday, page 80:

     While the coding of the person distinctions in Tolai is not as transparent as in Tok Pisin, the coding of number shows obvious relations to the number words of this language […] perhaps evidence of a quadral that was generalized to a plural.

   • 2009, Michael Cysouw, The Paradigmatic Structure of Person Marking, page 203:

     Another point is that, judging from the existing descriptions, true trials are extremely rare and true quadrals do not exist.

   • 2015, Keren Cumberbatch, “Jamaican Sign Language”, in Sign Languages of the World: A Comparative Handbook, page 517:

     The number categories of JSL pronouns are singular, dual, trial, quadral and plural.

2. (mathematics) A set of points with all the combinatorial properties of a quadric (a quadric being the set of points of PG(n, q) whose coordinates satisfy a quadratic equation).
   • 1952, American Mathematical Society, “Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society”, in Journal of the American Mathematical Society‎^[1], page 184:

     "A polynomial P(x₁, ..., x_n is called quadral if it splits into a product of quadratic (or linear) functions in the complex field of coefficients."

   • 1984, E. C. Pielou, The interpretation of ecological data: a primer, page 20:

     If we wished to divide the quadrals into classes, there are obviously several ways in which it could be done, all of them arbitrary. The arbitrariness arises because the points exhibit no natural clustering.

3. (rhetoric) A set of four phrases, separated by pauses when speaking or commas when writing.
   • 1925, John Hubert Scott, Rhythmic prose:

     The first instinctive step in revising written matter looks to an effecting of quadrals; any later revision aims at a perfecting of the rhythma.

   • 1932, John Hubert Scott, Zilpha Emma Chandler, Phrasal patterns in English prose, page 268:

     thanks to the rhythma,
     in dividing correctly
     many simple quadrals,
     in more involved sentences
     our arrangement shows regularly
     these simple quadrals
     expanding into "periods,"

4. A foursome.
   • 1998, Godfrey T Barrett-Lennard, Carl Rogers' Helping System: Journey & Substance, →ISBN, page 162:

     I like to call 4-person interactions and relational systems 'quadrals' (845—846). Their potentially visible occurrence in encounter type groups probably varies widely, and is not often discriminated unless in groups literally composed of couples.

Adjective

quadral (not comparable)

1. (grammar) Referring to four (or more) things; of, in or relating to the quadral grammatical number.
   • 1988, Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia, page 101:

     […] in Konomala, Patpatar, Tolai, Kandas, Duke of York and Siar of New Ireland, these quadral forms have replaced the original plurals.

   • 2009, Robert Blust, The Austronesian Languages, page 64:

     In some languages, such as Kenyah, a true quadral number also occurs in the pronoun system.

   • 2014, David Christopher Kamholz, Austronesians in Papua: Diversification and Change in South-Halmahera-West New Guinea, page 120:

     In several cases, plural pronouns clearly derive from historical trial and quadral forms.

2. (mathematics) Of or relating to quadral polynomials.

Usage notes

• It has been contested whether this grammatical phenomenon exists in human languages. See also Grammatical number.

See also

• (grammatical numbers) grammatical number; singular, dual, trial, quadral, quintal, paucal, plural ^{(Category: en:Grammar)}