<adv> versus <adv>+と versus <adv>+に


I often see adverbs used in one of three ways:

1) Adverb appears in isolation in a sentence:

> **あまり** 好きじゃないんですが。

2) Adverb is followed by に

> **別々に** お願いします。
>
> 1970年代後半、多くの罪もない日本の一般市民が **次々に** 失踪した。

3) Adverb is followed by と

> 鮮明な花火が夜空に **次々と** 揚がった。

Notice that in 2b), and 3), it's even the same adverb and the meaning appears
identical. So suppose for a minute we wrote sentence 3) in each of the three
different ways:

> 鮮明な花火が夜空に **次々** 揚がった。
>
> 鮮明な花火が夜空に **次々に** 揚がった。
>
> 鮮明な花火が夜空に **次々と** 揚がった。

Is there any difference between these?

I suspect that the first one is wrong, but the second two are identical and
both correct. But I don't know what rule governs this. And I think (although I
don't have an example handy) that the first ( adv only) and second ( adv + に)
patterns can also be used interchangeably in certain situations, which would
suggest that maybe all 3 can be used interchangeably in some situations, but
not others.

Can anyone explain how this works?




I think what's really going on here can be traced back to the two different
ways 形容動詞 (けいようどうし: adjectival nouns or "な-adjectives") were inflected. If we
look under the 連用形 (れんようけい: the "adverbial inflection", for lack of a better
term) column under the first table on [this Wikibooks page detailing Classical
Japanese inflection
patterns](http://ja.wikibooks.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A4%E8%AA%9E%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8%E8%A1%A8),
we find the following two patterns:

> ナリ活用 (the ナリ inflection), such as with 静か【しずか】: 静かなり or 静かに
>
> タリ活用 (the タリ inflection), such as with 堂々【どうどう】: 堂々たり or 堂々と

(The [Wikipedia page on
形容動詞](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BD%A2%E5%AE%B9%E5%8B%95%E8%A9%9E)
mentions that these inflections were derived from the ～にあり and ～とあり forms,
respectively, in Classical Japanese.) For the most part the old styles of
inflection have fallen out of use, but there are many examples fossilized in
Modern Japanese:

> 聖なる夜 holy night (also used as the Japanese title of "Silent Night")
>
> 暗澹【あんたん】たる時期 a dark period

So without getting into the entire class of words that is used as adverbs
without any special と or に appendages, we can see that from early on 形容動詞 were
split in that some took なり／に to become adverbs, while some took たり／と.

Generally speaking:

  * If a word is more commonly used as a な-adjective (that is, if its 連体形 (れんたいけい), the form by which it connects to a noun, is な), the adverbial form will have に.
  * If a word typically does not connect to nouns or is more commonly used as an adverb, the adverbial form will usually have と or nothing at all (excepting common forms such as ～になる or ～にする).

These are general rules (and not very good rules at that), and so exceptions,
such as 次々, aren't hard to find.

> 静か｛○に／×と／×∅｝話す speak quietly
>
> きれい｛○に／×と／×∅｝整える arrange neatly
>
> ゆっくり｛△に／○と／○∅｝歩く walk slowly
>
> きっぱり｛△に／○と／○∅｝言う say flatly
>
> はっきり｛△に／○と／○∅｝見える [be able to] see clearly

Unfortunately there are no pretty dividing lines between に and と here. This is
probably because に and と have both retained their role of "adverbializer"
throughout the evolution of Japanese, and neither form succeeded in displacing
the other. Boaz Yaniv mentions this phenomenon in his [answer for why some
adjectives use な and some use
の](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/920/925#925).




I think what's really going on here can be traced back to the two different
ways 形容動詞 (けいようどうし: adjectival nouns or "な-adjectives") were inflected. If we
look under the 連用形 (れんようけい: the "adverbial inflection", for lack of a better
term) column under the first table on [this Wikibooks page detailing Classical
Japanese inflection
patterns](http://ja.wikibooks.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A4%E8%AA%9E%E6%B4%BB%E7%94%A8%E8%A1%A8),
we find the following two patterns:

> ナリ活用 (the ナリ inflection), such as with 静か【しずか】: 静かなり or 静かに
>
> タリ活用 (the タリ inflection), such as with 堂々【どうどう】: 堂々たり or 堂々と

(The [Wikipedia page on
形容動詞](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BD%A2%E5%AE%B9%E5%8B%95%E8%A9%9E)
mentions that these inflections were derived from the ～にあり and ～とあり forms,
respectively, in Classical Japanese.) For the most part the old styles of
inflection have fallen out of use, but there are many examples fossilized in
Modern Japanese:

> 聖なる夜 holy night (also used as the Japanese title of "Silent Night")
>
> 暗澹【あんたん】たる時期 a dark period

So without getting into the entire class of words that is used as adverbs
without any special と or に appendages, we can see that from early on 形容動詞 were
split in that some took なり／に to become adverbs, while some took たり／と.

Generally speaking:

  * If a word is more commonly used as a な-adjective (that is, if its 連体形 (れんたいけい), the form by which it connects to a noun, is な), the adverbial form will have に.
  * If a word typically does not connect to nouns or is more commonly used as an adverb, the adverbial form will usually have と or nothing at all (excepting common forms such as ～になる or ～にする).

These are general rules (and not very good rules at that), and so exceptions,
such as 次々, aren't hard to find.

> 静か｛○に／×と／×∅｝話す speak quietly
>
> きれい｛○に／×と／×∅｝整える arrange neatly
>
> ゆっくり｛△に／○と／○∅｝歩く walk slowly
>
> きっぱり｛△に／○と／○∅｝言う say flatly
>
> はっきり｛△に／○と／○∅｝見える [be able to] see clearly

Unfortunately there are no pretty dividing lines between に and と here. This is
probably because に and と have both retained their role of "adverbializer"
throughout the evolution of Japanese, and neither form succeeded in displacing
the other. Boaz Yaniv mentions this phenomenon in his [answer for why some
adjectives use な and some use
の](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/920/925#925).

