The non-obviousness of the spelling of the “not” particle together or separately with adverbs can confuse any person. The rules of the Russian language studied at school are sometimes insufficiently worked out in practice, due to the rare use of constructions illustrating spelling in modern written language. Therefore, one day there may be a desire once and for all to figure out what to use in each particular case - “not much” or “a little”.
The use of the word "little"
According to the explanatory dictionary of the linguist Ushakov, the adverb "a little" is used on the letter in three cases:
- As a circumstance, in the meaning of “a little bit”, “slightly”, “not much”, answering the question “how?”. Examples of use: "he coughs a little", "she is a little tired."
- In the form of circumstances, answering the question “how much?”: “Buy some potatoes”, “drink some whiskey”.
- As a predicate: "This is quite a bit."
In all these cases, “a little” can be replaced by closely related synonyms “a little” or “a little”, without changing the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
The use of the adverb "a lot" with the particle "not"
To understand how to write “not much” or “a little”, where the particle “not” forms the opposite meaning of the adverb “a lot”.
Quite a few cases of separate writing of the construction “not much”, and they are not so common:
- "Not much" is written separately with adverbs ending in "o" if the sentence implies or uses a contrast that can be strengthened by the union "a": "not a lot, but just a little sugar", "not a lot of food, but very a little "," fortunately, not much (but not enough) has passed. "
- If together with “not much” the words reinforcing the negative meaning are used: “completely”, “not at all”, “at all”: “there is not much space”, “by no means a lot of effort”. Also, a strengthening of the negative value can occur by using words with a “no” particle: “not a bit”, “not at all a lot”.
- In interrogative sentences “not much” is written separately, if used together with the particles “whether” and “unless”: “do you take a lot on yourself?”, “Doesn’t she have a lot to do?”
Small tricks - we are looking for substitute words
If the spelling “a little” or “not a lot” still causes difficulties, then you can resort to a method of searching for synonyms or related in meaning cognate words that are absolutely accurately written together. The continuous writing of the adverb “a little” in a sentence is determined by its adequate replacement by the word “a little”.
| Examples | Replacement Examples |
| He drank some water. | He drank a little water. |
| She was a little cunning. | She was a little cunning. |
| We walked a bit. | We walked a bit. |
Such a substitution will help to prevent the spelling of the word “a little” in the interrogative sentence with the word “unless”: “Is it difficult to take a little extra stuff?”, Since this sentence can be written in the form: “Is it difficult to take a little extra stuff?”
So, the particle “not” should be written with adverbs with the endings “o” and “e” in common in all cases if it is possible to replace the word with a synonym without “not” or an expression with a close semantic meaning.
The semantic difficulties of spelling
There are situations in which the inclusion of meaning in a sentence determines the spelling “not much” or “little”.
Some phrases in which the spelling of the words in question depends on the meaning invested.
| Phrases with "not much" and "little" | Continuous spelling (if affirmative meaning is included in the sentence) | Separate spelling (if negative sentence is embedded in the sentence) |
| Sense from him was (?) | Yes, there was little sense from him (a little). | No, there wasn’t much sense from him (There wasn’t much sense from him). |
| He reads (?) Before going to bed. | Yes, he reads a little (a little) before going to bed. | No, he doesn’t read much before bedtime. (He does not read much before bedtime). |
| There was (?) Water. | Indeed, there was a little (a little) water. | No, there was not much water. (There wasn’t much water). |
It will take another (?) Time | Yes, it will take a little more time. | No, it will not take much time. (It does not take much time). |
So, if the meaning expressed by the sentence is affirmative, then the adverb “a little” is written together. The negative meaning of the phrase requires the separate writing of "not much."
"Not a lot" or "a little" - how to use it? The good news is that both spellings are correct, just used in different cases. In most situations, “a little” is written together, as it is easily replaced by the synonym “a little bit”. If a replacement cannot be made without loss of meaning, then “not much” is written separately for reasons detailed in the rules.