Adverbs of essence 97
(29) Others, however, found that their perception of space and time co-ordinates
was fundamentally changed (...) (UC)
D’autres, toutefois, se sont aperçus que leur perception de l’espace-temps avait
été bouleversée (...).
The high force or amplification of ‘change’ is expressed lexically in the verb boule-
verser which means ‘change drastically’.
Finally, there is one instance where essentially and vraiment (‘truly’) are con-
textual equivalents:
(30) That is essentially what we mean when we speak about coordination.
(DEP, D source)
Or, c’était vraiment ça que nous avons à l’esprit quand nous parlons de
coordination (...).
Both of these terms are translations of the Dutch item in wezen ‘in substance’.
That French here ‘deviates’ by using a truth confirming item does not detract from
the position taken here that such choices do give information on the contextual
meanings of the English adverbs, albeit indirectly. That there is a semantic link
between what is ‘essentially’ the case and what is ‘really’ the case is intuitively and
theoretically obvious. The extent to which the link is felt to be important by speak-
ers of the language would need further examination by looking for additional
cross-linguistic evidence.
- Equivalents of the adverbs in Dutch
Table 2 gives the Dutch correspondences.
Table 2. Dutch equivalents of English basically, essentially, fundamentally
Equivalents basically essentially fundamentally
ESSENCE
wezenlijk (‘essentially’) xx
in wezen (‘in substance’) xx
fundamenteel (‘fundamentally’) xx
in essentie (‘in essence’) x
op zich (‘in itself ’) x
in de grond (‘at bottom’) x x
het komt er op neer (‘it comes down to’) x
eigenlijk (‘actually’) x x
in feite (‘in fact’) x