The indefinite number phrase sey saram-to/-ina `(even) three people' in (17) and (18) also derives a scalar implicature that the number 'three' is the least likely number such that the number of people came.
(17) implies that the speaker expected at least three people would come, and (18) implies that the speaker expected at most three people would come, so the number 'three' is the least likely number in a pragmatic quantity scale.