Using "largely" to mean "significantly". Which is correct?

Question

I have a question concerning usage of the word "largely". While proof-reading a text written by a colleague* I saw a phrase similar to the following:

"Because of these advantages, technique X largely contributed to the understanding of Y."

My gut feeling was that this doesn't convey the intended meaning of "X contributed a lot to Y", but rather "X mainly contributed to Y, and that's the most it ever did."

He came up with examples that seemed to confirm his use of the word, but most of them were English-language websites of non-English-speaking companies. My own Google research was somewhat inconclusive: some instances came up, but again with a large bias towards non-native speakers.

Which is right?

*Both of us are native German speakers.

EDIT: Perhaps I should clarify that I do not fear the original sentence, in its context, might be actually misunderstood in the way I suggested, just that it would stand out as improper use of the adverb, and break the flow of reading.

Answer 1

I share your disagreement with your colleague. largely has two common meanings:

1. Mostly (¨for the most part¨)
2. On a large scale

The first meaning is entirely inappropriate, because it is talking about the distribution of activity across the available options.

Largely it contributed to the understanding of Y but it also, at times, turned up new insights into problem Z.

So this is about how much of X´s application contributed to Y and how much it did other things.

The other meaning of largely also does not help, because while it does say that X contributed on a large scale, it does not say how that compares to any other input that may help with Y. For all we know, everything related to Y may be done on a large scale; it may simply be a big task however you approach it. It would be much better to phrase this in a way that clearly shows the importance of the contribution:

... technique X contributed very significantly to the understanding of Y

... technique X was the principal contributor to the understanding of Y

... technique X has been crucial to improving the understanding of Y

Any of those would emphasis the key contribution made by X and remove the risk of ambiguity. They are also more idiomatic.

That said, largely would work if the subject and object in the phrase were inverted:

... the understanding of Y was largely improved by technique X.

With it this way round, the mostly meaning of largely becomes appropriate, because it shows that X is the principal contributor.

Answer 2

For non-native speakers of most languages, traps exist in relation to the use of words which appear, from their formal definitions, to be close synonyms. There are several different reasons for this.

One them is the fact that certain collocations tend to prevail over time, reflecting the fact that for various reasons (or with particular situations), speakers of that language have grown to prefer particular combinations over others. For example:

a) Who is your significant other? [a psychobabble term meaning "love interest/sexual partner/spouse, etc."]

is idiomatic, but

b) *Who is your important other?

is not.

Sometimes, completely different meanings can emerge from the use of what might seem to be almost exact synonyms. For instance:

i) That mountain is very close to us

and

ii) That mountain is very near to us

mean exactly the same thing. However, the adverbs derived from them do not; the sentences

iii) I'm closely following his progress [idiomatic]

and

iv) *I'm nearly following his progress [totally unidiomatic, with an unclear meaning]

are not at all similar in terms of the meanings they generate.

Another complication is that because word order is important in English, the position of a word in a sentence can have a significant effect on its meaning. For example:

1) Technique X largely contributed to the understanding of Y

means "Technique X's main contribution was in terms of the understanding of Y."

However, if we change the order slightly:

2) Technique X contributed largely to the understanding of Y

an ambiguity is introduced, because a slightly different additional meaning can be inferred:
"Technique X's contribution to the understanding of Y was significant."

Now let's take what many people might think of as a close synonym of 'largely' — greatly — and substitute that into sentences 1) and 2):

3) Technique X greatly contributed to the understanding of Y

4) Technique X contributed greatly to the understanding of Y

Here — for no particularly logical reason — unlike the case with 'largely', the meanings of these two sentences are exactly the same, namely "Technique X made a very large contribution to the understanding of Y".

Unfortunately, as is probably apparent by now, these kinds of distinctions cannot be perceived using logic alone. They must be repeatedly encountered (preferably in a meaningful context) and learned.

Answer 3

It would depend on the context somewhat. In isolation, I would take this sentence:

"Because of these advantages, technique X largely contributed to the understanding of Y."

to mean:

"X played a major role in the understanding of Y."

To me, this doesn't say anything one way or the other about X's contribution to other things.

Without further elaboration, you would likely need some outside knowledge to evaluate that. For example, if X was "the theory of gravity", there are probably a lot of Ys that it contributed to. But if X was "the discovery of the melting point of chocolate", it's probably not so big.

Answer 4

Your colleague is right in his usage. In this context it unambiguously means "In comparison to all the contributions to Y, X's contribution was large." The focus is on Y and it says nothing about other things X resulted in.

The term can also be used in a different context in the form "Doing X largely results in Y" which focuses on X saying that it results in Y and little else.

The difference between the two uses is quite subtle and depends entirely on context and might be easy to misuse or misunderstand if you are not a native English speaker. (Incidently I think if you directly substituted the word significantly you would have the same problem)

Apparently the difference is also tricky for some native english speakers too :P

You could say "X contributed largely, to y" or "X contributed, largely to Y" to specify each meaning. Without any commas the sentence "X contributed to Y" can be either meaning. So the OP says largely contributed (note word order reversed), this means the contribution was large but it is grammatically left unspecified what it is large in relation to, but that is left to context.