There won’t be many people, just a few.

This is an adverb phrase modifying ‘many.’

That is my thought, but I was told the phrase attached to the sentence was ungrammatical by a friend, who has no credibility by the way, so I assume he is incorrect.

Please tell me I’m right.

Cheers

There won’t be many people, just a few.

.
I would say that “a few” is an adjective phrase modifying people.

“There won’t be many people, just a few [people].” Just is an adverb modifying a few.

Don’t see this as adverbial at all.

Saparris is right - it can’t be adverbial.  (“Just a few many people” wouldn’t make sense.)

The sentence is perfectly OK in conversation, but if one wants to be pedantic it should read:
“There won’t be many people; there will just be a few”
so as to dissociate the not from just a few.

Reading your posts, I now see it clearly as adjectival.

“There won’t be many people; there will just be a few”
so as to dissociate the not from just a few.

Are you suggesting that the not would also affect ‘just a few’?

For example,

There won’t be many people, not just a few.

Is this why you say this? You don’t think that since it modifies only ‘people’ that it isn’t affected by ‘not’?

So would this be grammatical? The phrase wouldn’t have to be expanded into a main clause as you suggest:

There will be many people, just as many as last year.

The original sentence is telling us what there won’t be, not what there will be.  “Just a few” depends on the subject and verb for its sense, but the subject-and-verb phrase has a “not” locked into it.  If you were to write:
“There will be not many people, just a few”
the sentence would be OK (albeit rather unnatural), because you could analyse it as “There will be (i) not many people, (ii) just a few.

Eddie88 - 03 July 2009 05:04 PM

So would this be grammatical? The phrase wouldn’t have to be expanded into a main clause as you suggest:

There will be many people, just as many as last year.

This sentence is fine.

Just a few” depends on the subject and verb for its sense

This tells me you are treating it as an ellipse clause. That is, there will not be many; (there will be) just a few.

However, this is an adjective phrase modifying only people, not an ellipse clause.

Because I see it as an adjective phrase, I don’t see it being influenced by the subject or verb. It is only modifying the word people.

Or do you not see where I’m coming from?

Cheers

Eddie88 - 03 July 2009 07:05 PM

However, this is an adjective phrase modifying only people, not an ellipse clause.

Because I see it as an adjective phrase, I don’t see it being influenced by the subject or verb. It is only modifying the word people.

I simply can’t see this as an adjective phrase modifying “people”.  There won’t be many just-a-few people?  What is a just-a-few person? 

I think we’ll have to agree to differ on this one.

There won’t be many people, just a few.

I said that just a few was an adjective phrase moidifying people.
You said, “I simply can’t see this as an adjective phrase modifying people.”

How do you see it?

saparris - 04 July 2009 07:07 AM

How do you see it?

As a noun phrase forming the complement of be.  What I meant was that it does not modify the word “people” in the phrase “many people”, which is what Eddie88 was claiming.  It refers to an (implied) different set of people.

The main point is that I see “just a few [people]” as elliptical for “there will be just a few [people]”, but Eddie disputes this.  He contrasts my interpretation with his view that “just a few” modifies only “people” (???), and claims that it does not depend on the subject and verb for its sense.  I’m afraid I don’t understand this.  To me it can only be meant as elliptical - in which case the sentence is (strictly speaking) faulty because of the presence of the not.

But I don’t want to make too much of an issue of it.  As I say, the sentence is fine in conversation.  I would say it myself, and write it in dialogue.

I agree. I was referring only to “just a few,” which I thought Eddie88 was calling adverbial. Of course, there is an implied noun (people) that is a complement.

I suppose you might say that I wasn’t thinking of all the worlds in the elliptical phrase, but just a few, which is the adjectival component of the noun phrase.

As a noun phrase forming the complement of be.

‘What do you mean by complement? (Is a complement a second (compound) subject complement)? That is,

There will not be

2)just a few (people).

Is this what you are saying?

Cheers

There will not be

1)people

2)just a few (people).

yes

I now understand that it is a noun phrase, as it is describing a different set of people to the ‘people’ earlier stated.

There will be people, just a few.

So what is this one then? Is it still a complement of be?

And this one:

There will be people, just thought I would let you know.

This one is definitely a separate thought and needs to be a new main clause, as it doersn’t modify anything (it’s a verb phrase without its subject), or could you argue that it can be attached to the preceding clause with a comma?:

Thanks

There will be people, just a few. So what is this one then? Is it still a complement of be?

Yes

There will be people, just thought I would let you know.

This one is two sentences. The subject (I) is missing because it’s conversational English.

“Traditionally, Woman are not treated well, these days woman are treated well”

Can you simplify this please?

Today, women are treated well, which was not the case in the past.
Today’s women are treated well, unlike those in the past.
In the past, women were not treated well. Today, they are.