Is there a real difference with 'for'?

0Then it would potentially change meaning, I think. 'For a little bit' means for a short length of time. In 'I felt sorry for the blind man a little bit' it could mean either for a short time or to a small extent. To clarify the small extent, I could move it to the attributive position: 'I felt a little bit sorry for the blind man'; but I cannot clarify the durational meaning without the 'fo

0 To clarify, can we conclude that: 02br
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00- 'for a little bit' means 'for a short length of time' in the original sentence 02br
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00- 'a little bit' definitely means 'to a small extent' in 'I felt a little bit sorry for the blind man' 02br
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00I'm not sure of the term 'attributive position'. Does it refer to the position bef

0Yes, I agree with your two conclusions, Clarence. The 'for' in fact demands that the phrase be taken as a time unit, I think. (And 'attributive' does mean that it comes before the word it modifies, in contradistinction to 'predicative'.) 02br
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00I agree also that your dialogue, being terse, is a bit ambiguous, and could be taken either way by speaker A. Nevertheless,

0 Thanks a lot for clarifying. Interestingly, I'd definitely use 'a while' for all 3 examples you've given. Even now that I know 'a bit' can be used to express time, using it somehow still doesn't 'sound right' to the ear among my friends who are non-native speakers (I guess even so, even after we have knowledge of its durational meaning). But I'm glad I can now understand it when conversing wit