Understanding ハッとしたように


The full sentence:

> 藤木がハッとしたように言った。  
>  「thing Fujiki said」  
>  Fujiki said with surprise ...

How does this differ from just saying

> 藤木がハッと言った。

Is したように necessary, and if so, why, and what extra is it adding?

Note, I'm happy with how the するように construct works normally. I'm just asking
about whether it might be redundant in this sentence since ハッと is already an
adverb.




> 「藤木がハッと言った。」

If this sentence meant **_anything_** , it would be none other than:

> "Fujiki said 「ハッ」."

In other words, to native speakers,

> 「藤木がハッと言った。」＝「藤木が『ハッ』と言った。」

「ハッと」 surely functions adverbially, but it can only modify selected verbs such
as する、[驚]{おどろ}く、[気]{き}づく, etc. 「[言]{い}う」 is not one of those verbs.

I assure you that there is no redundancy whatsoever in the sentence:

> 「藤木がハッとしたように言った。」

Perhaps, you would need to treat 「ハッとする」 like one word here.




> 「藤木がハッと言った。」

If this sentence meant **_anything_** , it would be none other than:

> "Fujiki said 「ハッ」."

In other words, to native speakers,

> 「藤木がハッと言った。」＝「藤木が『ハッ』と言った。」

「ハッと」 surely functions adverbially, but it can only modify selected verbs such
as する、[驚]{おどろ}く、[気]{き}づく, etc. 「[言]{い}う」 is not one of those verbs.

I assure you that there is no redundancy whatsoever in the sentence:

> 「藤木がハッとしたように言った。」

Perhaps, you would need to treat 「ハッとする」 like one word here.

