What is the difference between "little" and "a little" (when used as adverbials)? Is it the same as between "few" (not enough to matter) and "a few" (enough to matter, but not a lot)? Say

> I slept **little** *[meaning "cut me some slack"]*

> I slept **a little** *[meaning "I may not have had the best sleep of my life, but generally I'm in the game"]*

Are my guesses correct?

No! It's not a duplicate! I looked at some other questions that concerned "little". The answers didn't address this specific question