The 'expanded local mode approach' derived in Ref. [1] (Ulenikov et al., Spectrochim. Acta Part A, 52 (1996) 1829) is modified in an appropriate way for the analysis of XY2 (C-2v) molecules having an arbitrary value of the equilibrium interbond angle 2 alpha(e). It is shown that the conditions considered allow one to estimate with good enough accuracy the harmonic frequencies (quadratic force field parameters) of a molecule on the basis of experimental information on pure rotational spectra only. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.