Curiosity about "At least"

[Vsherry]

OK, obviously adverbs traditionally don't modify nouns at all.

How about this sentence:

"At least three bought cars." "At least" is only defined as an adverb wherever I see it, but in this sentence, does it not modify "three," a noun?

I am using at least to mean "no less than" here.

[Vsherry]

I think I complicated this. Take this scenario.

Someone asks if George, Jessica and Ralph saw a movie. I say, "At least Jessica saw it. I don't know about the other two." Here it seems "at least" is affecting Jessa more than in the following example.

Is "at least" acting the same way here:

"Martina at least read the book." Here it seems the impact is more directly on the verb. To me, this is likelier to mean that perhaps someone was asked to review it, for instance, and no one did. Someone notes Martina at least read it, even if she didn't review it. Am I overthinking this?

Something about the nature of "at least" has always seemed sketchy to me. It seems the placement matters much more than usual.

[Jamie (K)]

"Three" is not a noun in that sentence. It's a quantifier, which is a type of adjective. It modifies "cars".

[Vsherry]

[Vsherry]

I just reread my sentence. "Three" was meant to refer to the buyers, by the way.

[Vsherry]

The dictionary says "three" can indeed mean a set of three persons or things as a noun.