Evaluative adjectives assign some value to the modified noun. This is not done by virtue of their own descriptive content (i.e. we are not dealing with an “N is A” relation), but in a more indirect way. Nor do the evaluative adjectives establish a kind-of relation with any other entity, at least not synchronically; although drommels in (152a) is derived from the obsolete noun drommeldevil (cf. etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/drommels), most contemporary speakers will not be aware of this fact. The examples in (152) also show that evaluative adjectives are used only attributively, and that modification by a degree modifier is impossible.

Evaluative adjectives usually express some negative value: drommels/duivelsdevilish, bliksems (lit.: lightning-ly), dekselsconfounded, jammerlijkdeplorable, verrekt/verdomddamned, vermaledijdcursed. Evaluative adjectives expressing a positive value seem to be rare, if they exist at all; some possible positive examples are hemelsheavenly, and idyllischidyllic, but since these examples can also be used in predicative position, we may actually be dealing with set-denoting adjectives.

Occasionally, set-denoting adjectives can shift their meaning in the direction of evaluative adjectives. Some typical examples of this extended use are given in (154), where the adjectives certainly do not denote an attribute of the head noun. Nor do they imply a kind-of relation. The primed examples show that since these set-denoting adjectives do not denote a property of the modified noun, they cannot be used predicatively either (although deze trui is stoer is occasionally used in advertisements for clothing with the meaning “makes one look though”).

The evaluation of the head noun expressed by the adjectives in (154) is established indirectly; we are dealing with a chair in which one can be lazy (154a), a sweater that makes one feel/look tough (154b), and a facial expression one has when one is in love (154c). The noun phrase een kwade dronk in (154d) is especially used in the fixed expression een kwade dronk hebbento be quarrelsome in oneʼs cup. For completeness, note that the evaluative adjectives in (154) are quite similar to the attributive adjectives in the primeless examples of (155), which are related to the adjunct middle constructions in the doubly-primed examples; cf. Hoekstra & Roberts (1993), Ackema & Schoorlemmer (2006), and Section V3.2.2.3.

When we are dealing with nouns like opmerkingremark or briefletter, the evaluative adjective often refers to the supposed disposition of the source of the referent of the nominal phrase. The examples in (156) show that such phrases often function as the subject of the verb klinkento sound.

The adjectives in the examples in (157) refer to the (resulting) mood of the perceiver.

It is sometimes difficult to decide whether we are dealing with a set-denoting adjective in its regular or in its extended, evaluative use. Example (158a), for instance, certainly does not express that the food is in an unhealthy state. Nevertheless, the adjective ongezond can be used as a predicate of the noun phrase dit voedsel in (158b). For this reason, ongezond should probably not be regarded as an evaluative adjective, but as an elliptical form of the complex AP voor mensen ongezondunhealthy for humans, which can also be used in both attributive and predicative positions.