Re: Few vs. a few

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."
>
> How do you handle this in your conlangs, especially if your conlang has
> no indefinite article.
How about using "only".

As Mach said, the natural German for the first is "Ein paar Leute" and
for the second, I'd say "Nur Wenige" -- but I could also imagine using
"Wenige" in the first case, in which case the difference boils down to
"Wenige" vs. "Nur Wenige", i.e. "Few" vs. "Only few".

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>