@article{Solt_2019, title={Why A Few? And Why Not *A Many?}, volume={10}, url={https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/736}, DOI={10.18148/sub/2006.v10i2.736}, abstractNote={<p>The expressions <em>few </em>and <em>a few </em>are typically considered to be separate quantifiers. I challenge this assumption, showing that with the appropriate definition of <em>few</em>, <em>a few </em>can be derived compositionally as <em>a </em>+ <em>few</em>. The core of the analysis is a proposal that <em>few </em>has a denotation as a one-place predicate which incorporates a negation operator. From this, argument interpretations can be derived for expressions such as <em>few students </em>and <em>a few students</em>, differing only in the scope of negation. I show that this approach adequately captures the interpretive differences between <em>few </em>and <em>a few</em>. I further show that other such pairs are blocked by a constraint against the vacuous application of <em>a</em>.</p>}, number={2}, journal={Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung}, author={Solt, Stephanie D.}, year={2019}, month={Aug.}, pages={333–346} }