Re: Few vs. a few

Dne Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:31:37 +0100 caeruleancentaur
<caeruleancentaur@...> napsal/-a:

> I notice a difference in connotation in these two expressions.  "A few
> people attended the meeting," means simply that there was a small
> number in attendance.  "Few people attended the meeting" connotes a
> certain disappointment: "There were not as many people in attendance as
> we had expected."
>
> How do you handle this in your conlangs, especially if your conlang has
> no indefinite article.
>
> Or in any natlang you may know.  I wonder of "Poca gente asistieron en
> la reunion" conveys both meanings.
>
> Charlie
>
Czech, which doesn't have articles, would use two different words. "few"
(focusing on that the number is small) would be _málo_ (a word with the
same base as the word _malý_ "small"), while "a few" (some small amount or
number) could be _několik_ "several". "Few people attended the meeting"
could (and probably would instead of the latter) be expressed without the
word for "few" and with the word for "many" and the whole sentence negated
instead, i.e.: Moc lidí na setkání nepřišlo.
lit. A lot of people to the meeting didn't-come. (= A lot of people didn't
attend the meeting. -I know it strongly suggests a different
interpretation in English)

Also Spanish, being a language that has articles, has different words for
each of the sentences - for "few" there is _pocas_ and for "a few" or
"several" there is _algunas_ and perhaps other words. I haven't figured
this out for conlangs but I could go along those lines.