[求助]PrepI-26 悬而未决

HeavenlyAres

The investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support the generalization of there being little that is a significant difference in the underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures.

(A) of there being little that is a significant difference

(B) of there being little that is significantly different

(C) of little that is significantly different

(D) that there is little that is significantly different

(E) that there is little of significant differences

D is correct.

这题貌似讨论汇总有不少人问过，但是都没人答复的。D中的little究竟算什么成分？查遍了语法书也没见过little可以当名词的，又不是"the+adj"的形式。尽管说E可能有歧义，但我总不能放着这么明显的错误不管去推敲逻辑意思吧。。。请NN指教

[此贴子已经被作者于2009/10/23 23:37:51编辑过]

clarry

LZ 这里的little就是名词。你可以看看一下几个例子：

a little at a time
A little is better than none.

Many a little makes a mickle.

HeavenlyAres

以下是引用clarry在2009/10/24 12:28:00的发言：

LZ 这里的little就是名词。你可以看看一下几个例子：

a little at a time
A little is better than none.

Many a little makes a mickle.

嗯。。。那也只能是名词了。。。谢谢了。

不过请问你给出的后两个例子是谚语吗？

powers

才做了这题，很困惑！也查了朗文
little没有名词，只能做 determiner /pronoun

朗文给的用法 ：
Grammar
A little and  little  are used before uncountable nouns.
A little  means 'some, but not a lot' :
We still have a little time left.
In spoken British English, it is more usual to say  a bit of :  
I’ve got a bit of money left.
Little   on its own (without  a ) means 'not much'.
It emphasizes how small the amount is. It is mainly used in writing or formal speech :  
There is now little hope of success.
In conversation or informal writing, it is more usual to say  not much :  
There was not much milk left.

这题里的名词呢？ 求NN解答

geegee

<英汉大辞典>（第二版，译文社）
little n. [表示否定]（数量或程度上）微小，几乎没有。
例子 Little is known about the author.
I have seen little of life.我不谙世故。

(D) that there is little that is significantly different感觉佶屈聱牙，
可能相当于 that there is almost no significant difference ...

反正在D，E中选（the generalisation的出现决定的）。只能选D。
但还是感觉莫名。

geegee

可能D想表达，有显著的差异，但是集中在很小的范围内（数量上）。
如果是程度上的差异，就没法这样表达，如D那样。