Instrumental case - confused!

[raldon]

Hi Everyone!

Hope someone can help me. I know about the basic uses of the instrumental case, but lately I came across a really weird sentence in a book which makes no sense to me:

Гудками тревожили ранними.

Maybe it's the word order throwing me off here... It's something about alarms ringing late I think, but I can't work out why the instrumental case is being used.

Hope someone can help!

Rich

[Pollyanna]

Hello raldon!

The sentence implies that someone/something was disturbed by early alarms.
The word, which describes who or what was disturbed, is missed. And the word order is not usual for spoken language. You rather meet it in a literature, especially in poetry.

The instrumental case is being used to point by what that disturbing was caused.
by early alarms - гудками ранними

If you want to say the same in more casual way you should say something like:
(они) тревожили (меня) ранними гудками.
(they) disturbed (me) by early alarms.

Hope this helps

[raldon]

Thanks a million for your help - it makes sense now. I sometimes forget that you can be more creative with word order in Russian!

Rich

[Pollyanna]

Rich, you are welcome!