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Anonymous Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Question Tags

Regarding Question Tags -

There are few students in the canteen, is there any?
There are few students in the canteen, is it?

Which one is correct?
  

Top answer

Those are both awkward to the point of nonsense. I'm not sure of the intended meaning of your antecedent clause. If you mean, "a few," then I'd say, There are a few students in the canteen, aren't there ?

— Avangi

  • Those are both awkward to the point of nonsense.
  • I'm not sure of the intended meaning of your antecedent clause.
  • If you mean, "a few," then I'd say, There are a few students in the canteen, aren't there ?
  • (meaning, "at least a few") Or even, There are very few students in the canteen, aren't there ?
  • (meaning, "almost none") While "There are few students in the canteen" works as a statement, it doesn't work very well as a question.
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2 Answers
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Those are both awkward to the point of nonsense.

I'm not sure of the intended meaning of your antecedent clause. If you mean, "a few," then I'd say,
There are a few students in the canteen, aren't there? (meaning, "at least a few")

Or even, There are very few students in the canteen, aren't there? (meaning, "almost none")
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Few is a semi-negative word. Whenever a sentence contains few, it is considered a negative one. So such a sentence needs a positive tag. But a few is a positive word. So a sentence containing a few is a positive one and it needs a negative tag.
There are few students in the canteen, are there?
There are a few students in the canteen, aren't there?
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