<adv> versus <adv>+と versus <adv>+に?

Question

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?

Answer 1

に usually comes into play when a noun or a な-adjective is being used adverbially. It's a simple change like using adverbial く for い-adjectives.

と can be seen to mark phenomimes and psychomimes that may have an idea of "sound" attached to them. Imagine a cartoon where a room is sparkling clean. A sound effect of bright tinkling is usually included, right? Being clean really doesn't make that kind of sound, but we can easily imagine that it does. I would imagine that と makes things seem more lively as we're engaging another sense.