What does "in particular" modify?

Question

1. There is a fairly long history of connections by presidents to New York, in particular since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House.

2. ... in British sport; more specifically, we set out to docu- ment the prevalence, and the changing patterns, of drug use in British sport, in particular since the 1960s.

3. Europeanization has also exerted increasingly strong pressures for policy reform, in particular since the 1990s, with the push toward further deregulation in a wide ...

Q1)It looks like "in particular" grammatically modifies "since" in each sentence. Am I right?

Q2) If I'm right, it's really strange to me that a propositional phrase such as "in particular" can grammatically modify another preposition like in the examples. Don't you think it's strange?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

fire1What does "in particular" modify?

Like other adverbials like 'especially' or 'to be more specific', 'in particular' modifies the whole clause that follows (first example) or the whole phrase that follows (next two examples).

fire1Q1)It looks like "in particular" grammatically modifies "since" in each sentence. Am I right?

No. It modifies the whole clause or phrase that starts with 'since'.

fire1Q2) If I'm right, it's really strange to me that a propositional phrase such as "in particular" can grammatically modify another preposition like in the examples. Don't you think it's strange?

No, it's not strange to use that kind of adverbial. There are many. Sometimes, by chance, they end up at the beginning of a subordinate clause or phrase, so these apparently odd combinations do come up from time to time.

Russia is still a relatively influential and powerful country, in particular in the context of the region.
I would like to thank a number of friends who supported my studies, in particular by providing access to their unpublished data.
The rather flexible labour market and low unemployment seem to have contributed to the relatively high employment of immigrants and their children in international comparison, in particular for men.

An often used therapy after herbal medicine, and specifically for skin disorders, is homeopathy.
This intervention program supports and enriches teachers specifically in an area that poses most difficulties.
We were asked to investigate how lengthening life spans were affecting people, specifically with respect to banks and insurance products.

CJ

What does "in particular" modify?

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