Re: Few vs. a few

Hi!

On 10/29/07, caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:
>
> 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."

Well, once a romanian friend corrected me, saying that "a few" means
something like "not few ~ many" and "few" means just "few". As neither of us
is a native speaker, this information is not that canonical ; ). But see:

Quite a few cats are flying over my house ~ many cats.
Quite few cats &c &c ~ few cats.

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.

Is "poca gente asistieron" grammatical? It screams "wrooong!" to my
portuguese ears: "pouca gente assistiu".

Charlie


Edgard.

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