a few / a little

We use 'a few' with plural countable nouns - a few books, a few people.

We use 'a little' with uncountable nouns: a little money, a little water.

Or, as number correlates with countability in this case, a little {singular noun} and a few {plural noun}.

CJ

I don't think 'a little', in the sense of 'an amount of' can be used with singular countable nouns. I also don't think that uncountable nouns can be considered as singular, though they take a singular verb.

fivejedjonI don't think 'a little', in the sense of 'an amount of' can be used with singular countable nouns. I also don't think that uncountable nouns can be considered as singular, though they take a singular verb.

Re: First sentence. I knew I was missing something. And I suspected someone would find it.
Re: Second sentence. Hunh? "sugar" is not sing

CalifJim "sugar" is not singular in "Sugar is sweet"? Doesn't that complicate the theory of grammatical number unnecessarily?

'Would you like one sugar or two?' In contexts such as this, where 'sugar' means 'lump' or 'spoonful', then 'sugar is countable; it can be singular or plural.

In 'sugar is sweet', sugar is uncountable/non-count. I

fivejedjonWe cannot have 'one' of 'it'.

But you can only have one of it, namely, all of it, the whole of it.

Not so. I like sugar in my coffee, but I sure as heck don't want all the sugar there is in the world.

fivejedjonIn 'sugar is sweet', sugar is uncountable/non-count. It cannot be singular.

If sugar isn't singular, it must be plural and we should say sugar are sweet because is can only be used with singular words.

fivejedjonNot so. I like sugar in my coffee, but I sure as heck don't want all the sugar there is in the world.

I don't take sugar in my coffee, so I can't really respond to that.

Cool BreezeIf sugar isn't singular, it must be plural

Don't encourage CJ!

Our verb system allows only a binary system - singular vs plural. Our noun system is superficially binary, countable vs uncountable, but the countable category is also binary, singular vs plural. The resulting three categories have to be shoe-horned into the binary verb system.