. . . a tough few early years . . .

[shootingstar]

(Mrs Elm speaking)
'In your root life Voltaire (Nora's cat) lived longer than almost any other life, except the one you encountered, where he died only three hours ago. Although he had a tough few early years, the year you had him was the best of his life. Voltaire has had much worse lives, believe me.'
(The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, episode The Only Way to Learn Is to Live)

I would expect the following word order: "Although he had a few tough early years", . . . What is the reason for the original word order? Does it matter whether "tough" comes first or "few" comes first? Is there a difference in meaning? I can't find any noun that "tough" might refer to either? Maybe, "tough" itself is nominalized there - its meaning similar to "a tough time".

I think I have got the right answer: The noun "tough" refers to is "life". Does I have it right?

 

[SoothingDave]

Yes. He had some tough years.

 

[shootingstar]

Thank you.
Sorry, but I don't understand your answer. Does "tough" refer to "years" or to "life"?

 

[SoothingDave]

"Tough" is modifying "years." I don't know how you think it is modifying "life."

 

[shootingstar]

"Tough" is modifying "years." I don't know how you think it is modifying "life."

Because I don't understand the word order there. What does "a tough few years" mean. I could understand "a few tough early years". Does "a tough few early years" have the same meaning? If not, what is the difference?

 

[Skrej]

A few of the early years of his life were tough (difficult to survive). Although his life during those years was difficult, it doesn't mean his entire life was tough. In fact, we're told that his later years were actually pretty good. Not only is this true, but overall this particular iteration of his life was a relatively good one, compared to some previous lives.

The word order doesn't make any difference in overall meaning, but it does change the focus a bit.

A few tough years - focus is a bit more on the number of bad years.
A tough few years - focus is a bit more on the toughness aspect, rather than the actual number of them.

The emphasis is fairly subtle, either way.

 

[shootingstar]

Thank you very much .
"Few" is a determiner. Isn't it mandatory that the determiner precedes the adjective in noun phrases? Annabel Lee said so in the following thread (post #9). Maybe "few" is an exception.

 

[Skrej]

Whether 'few' is a determiner or and adjective is open to debate - as is the whole determiner vs. adjective discussion. It's one of those things pedantics and grammarians love to hash out, but I'm not convinced there's much if any real, practical benefit for a language learner, even if everyone miraculously came to some kind of agreement.

Note that Webster's simply labels 'few' as an adjective (versus the noun and pronoun).

At least in this example, 'few' is just an imprecise number. One could substitute a specific number in the original sentence with the same minor differences in focus mentioned in post #6. Ditto for other adjectives such as 'many', or 'several'.

Honestly, I think your confusion on the determiner vs. adjective thing is a pretty good example of how unhelpful the distinction is. No matter how you label them, they're still giving you information about a noun. While the naming and classification may be good fodder for publication, research papers or a graduate thesis, it's not so useful to the average language learner for understanding meaning.

While everyone also talks about the adjective order system in English, it's not 100% ironclad. It's typically somewhat flexible within a few elements, as long as you don't try to radically alter the usual order.

 

[jutfrank]

In my mind, the adjective 'tough' modifies not 'years' but all of 'few early years'.

Certain 'opinion' adjectives do qualify noun phrases that already include quantifier phrases. In these cases, the adjective is itself preceded by an indefinite article. It seems to me also that the head of the NP is typically some period of time. Here are some other similar examples:

an amazing first twenty minutes
a brilliant several days
a difficult last few years

There must be some mention of such usage in one of the big grammar references such as CGEL, but I can't help with that.