All examples in the previous subsections, with the exception of the resultative constructions discussed in Subsection IG, involve the modification of a noun corresponding to the agent (subject) or theme (direct object/theme-subject) of the relevant verbal construction. At first sight, this seems to exhaust the possibilities; for example, the participles corresponding to the ditransitive verb aanbiedento offer in (42a) cannot modify a noun corresponding to the goal argument (indirect object) of the verb. The number signs indicate that the noun directeurthe manager can be interpreted as corresponding to the agent of the active verb in (42b) and as corresponding to its theme in (42c), which is not relevant for our present discussion.

However, some care should be taken with a small class of ditransitive verbs that are special in that they do not require the direct object to be present. Two examples are the verbs betalento pay and voerento feed in (43).

The number agreement on the finite verb in the primeless examples in (44) shows that the direct object is promoted to subject in the passive construction as usual. However, the primed examples show that, when the direct object is not present, the goal argument is promoted to subject instead.

This special behavior in the passive construction is reflected in the corresponding attributive constructions. In the primeless examples in (45) the modified noun corresponds to the theme, while in the primed examples it corresponds to the goal of the verb.

One might propose that the availability of the primed examples in (44) and (45) is due to the fact that we are dealing with homophonous verbs: verbs like betalento pay and voeren can be ditransitive verbs with a theme and a goal, but they can also be monotransitive verbs that realize their goal argument (de werknemers/de aap) as a direct object. A potential problem with such a proposal would be that the primed examples are marked but acceptable if the direct object is realized, as in (46).

The relative acceptability of the examples in (46) casts some doubt on our earlier conclusion, reached on the basis of example (42c), repeated here in simplified form as (47a), that past/passive participles of ditransitive verbs cannot be used attributively if the noun corresponds to the goal, i.e. the indirect object of the active verb. This doubt may even be strengthened when we see that (47a) improves considerably when the direct object of the corresponding verbal construction is added, as in (47b). Note, however, that most (but not all) speakers still consider (47b) to be marked.

The contrast between the two examples in (47) may be related to the fact that besides the regular passive in (48a), Dutch also has the so-called krijgen- or semi-passive in (48b), in which the indirect object of the ditransitive construction is promoted to subject; cf. Section V3.2.1. That the direct object must be expressed overtly in (47b) may then follow from the fact, illustrated in (48b), that the direct object must also be expressed overtly in krijgen-passives. That the head noun in (47a) allows an (implausible) interpretation as theme is consistent with the fact, illustrated in (48a), that indirect objects are often realized optionally: this is also clear from the full acceptability of the more plausible example de (haar) aangeboden assistentthe assistant offered to her.

This subsection concludes our discussion of the restrictions imposed on attributively used participles with a brief discussion of contraction verbs. These verbs have a stem ending in a long vowel and an infinitive with -n instead of the regular -en ending. The present participles of these verbs are formed by adding -nd to the stem. The past/passive participles end in /n/; examples are given in Table (49).

infinitive	stem	present participle	past participle
doen ‘to do’	doe	doend	gedaan
gaan ‘to go’	ga	gaand	gegaan
slaan ‘to hit’	sla	slaand	geslagen (irregular)
staan ‘to stand’	sta	staand	gestaan
vergaan ‘to decay/be wrecked’	verga	vergaand	vergaan
zien ‘to see’	zien	ziend	gezien

The examples in (50) show that the present participles of these contraction verbs are normally not easily used attributively.

The examples in (51) seem to run counter to this claim, but it should be noted that they are more or less fixed collocations.

This is even clearer in (52a), where the modified noun does not correspond to the subject of the verb from which the present participle is derived: it is not the reception but the people present who are standing. This kind of “metaphorical” use of the present participle is abundant in Dutch: another clear example of this use, involving a regular form of the present participle, is given in (52b): again, it is not the buffet that is walking, but the people who are supposed to collect their food.

The attributive use of past participles of contraction verbs also generally yields degraded results. There may be a phonological/morphological reason for this: the result is always marked in contexts that require the attributive -e ending to be present, while the result is sometimes much better in singular indefinite noun phrases headed by a neuter noun, in which this ending is absent. This is illustrated in (53) by comparing the singular and plural counterparts of noun phrases headed by a neuter noun; however, it may be that the attributive forms in the primed examples are simply grammatical, since they are easily found in written texts.

As with the present participles, there are more or less idiomatic expressions that are clearly fully acceptable. Some examples are given in (54).

The participles in these examples can be true adjectives, which can be supported by the minimal pair in (55): example (55a) involves an attributively used participle, and the result is marked; the negative prefix on- in (55b) unambiguously shows that we are dealing with an adjective, and the result is perfectly fine. Note, however, that both forms are common in formal written texts (in which case the form in (55a) regularly occurs with a hyphen: niet-voorziene).

Note that the diacritics in this section are (as usual) judgments about relative acceptability, not grammaticality: since many of the examples given as marked are easily found, e.g. on the internet, it seems useful to investigate whether there is a dichotomy between spoken and written text in this regard.

Consider again the examples in (23b&c), repeated here in a slightly different form as (57). The present participle in (57a) expresses durative aspect: we are dealing with an ongoing event. The past/passive participle in (57b) expresses perfective aspect: we are dealing with a completed event. What we have ignored so far, however, is that the past/passive participle in (57b) has a second reading in which perfective aspect plays no role: the participle simply refers to the property of being slaughtered. In other words, the verbal nature of the past/passive participle geslachte has perished and the participle acts semantically like a true adjective, comparable to e.g. breek-baar fragile/breakable.

The fact that adjectival past/passive participles can be nonverbal in nature can be demonstrated even more clearly by the participle geslotenclosed in (58). This example would be perfectly appropriate in the context of a newly built swimming pool the opening ceremony of which has been delayed; this means that the event of closing the swimming pool has never occurred and that the verbal reading of gesloten is excluded for extra-linguistic reasons.

The ambiguity in (57b) occurs not only with transitive verbs, but also with unaccusative verbs. This is illustrated in (59) for the unaccusative verb trouwento marry. The past participle getrouwd can refer either to the event of getting married, in which case we have a verbal participle, or to the state of being married, in which case the participle is truly adjectival.

The verbal and truly adjectival participles differ in several ways. First, if the participle is transitive, the subject of the corresponding active clause can be expressed by a door-phrase in the case of a verbal past/passive participle; cf. Section 31.2.2. However, this is not possible with a truly adjectival participle, which is clear from the fact that (60a) has only the verbal reading. The same is true when arguments other than the agentive door-phrase are expressed: (60b) illustrates this with the (optional) beneficiary argument voor Peterfor Peter.

Second, adjectives and verbs differ in that only the former can be prefixed with the negative morpheme on-; cf. Section 31.1, sub IB3. Thus, when a participle is prefixed with this morpheme, we can be sure that it is a truly adjectival past/passive participle. Accordingly, the examples in (61) have a state reading only. Since the use of a door-phrase and prefixation with on- leads to a contradiction regarding the verbal/adjectival status of the participle, we correctly predict that example (61b) is unacceptable when the door-phrase is present.

The final difference concerns adverb selection. A verbal past/passive participle refers to a specific point on the time axis at which the action was completed, whereas a truly adjectival participle refers to a larger interval during which the state attributed to the head noun is applicable. As a result, the two types of participle combine with different types of adverbial phrases of time. Verbal participles combine with adverbial phrases that refer to a specific point in time, such as gisterenyesterday, or with adverbs such as meermaalsseveral times or twee keertwice, which express that an eventuality occurred more than once. Truly adjectival participles, on the other hand, combine with adverbial phrases that refer to a continuous span of time, such as jarenlangfor years. Consequently, example (62a) only has the verbal reading, which is also clear from the fact that the participle cannot be prefixed with the negative prefix on-, while example (62b) only has the truly adjectival reading, which is supported by the fact that prefixation with on- is possible in this case.

Recent work has claimed that prenominal past/passive participles actually have a third reading, in which the past/passive participle refers not simply to an event or a property, but to a property resulting from an event: cf. Sleeman (2011/2014). The prenominal past/passive participle in (63), for example, is threefold ambiguous: in (63a) it refers to an event (the radio broke down, although it had just been carefully repaired); in (63b) it refers to a change in state as a result of the event (Jan is happy because the radio is no longer broken); in (63c) it simply refers to the state of being repaired (e.g. the radio was resold as a refurbished product).

Sleeman (2011) analyzes the three readings in terms of the internal structure of the participle, but independent syntactic evidence for this proposal seems hard to find. For this reason, we will not elaborate on it here, but refer the reader to the article.

Suppressing the dative object leads to a degraded result with attributively used past participles of the nom-dat verbs in (64). This shows that these participles do not easily receive a truly adjectival reading. Note that the examples (64a&c) are only marginally acceptable if the dative object is contextually implied or recoverable from the situation; if not, the dative object must be overtly expressed.

The conclusion that participles of nom-dat verbs cannot be truly adjectival is supported by the examples in (65), which show that past participles of nom-dat verbs also lack the adjectival properties of on- prefixation and modification by adverbial phrases such as jarenlangfor years.

The fact that past participles of object experiencer psych-verbs can be modified by degree modifiers such as heelvery and be prefixed by on- unambiguously shows that the participles of this type of verb can be interpreted as truly adjectival.

The fact that amplification by heelvery is never possible with attributively used participles of other verb types shows that adjectival past participles of object experiencer verbs are special in that they are gradable. This conclusion is backed up by the examples in (67), which show that the participle geïnteresseerd also has a comparative/superlative form; the synthetic comparative form geïnteresseerdere can also be found on the internet but is clearly less popular.

Although these examples unambiguously show that past participles of object experiencer psych-verbs allow a truly adjectival reading, it is not so clear whether the attributively used object experiencer psych-verbs can also have a verbal reading: that a truly adjectival stative reading is strongly preferred is clear from the fact, illustrated in (68a), that adverbs such as gisterenyesterday, which refer to a certain point on the time axis, cannot easily be added. We therefore conclude that attributively used past/passive participles of the psych-verb strongly prefer the truly adjectival reading (but see Section V2.5.1.3 for a more careful discussion).

For completeness’ sake, note that we did not use the verb interesseren in (68) because the use of the adverbial phrase gisteren also gives rise to a marked result in the active construction in (69b); however, this example improves when a negative element like nietnot or weiniglittle is added. As can be seen in (68b), this problem does not arise with the verb amuseren.

The discussion in the previous subsections is summarized in Table 5. The verb types for which the distinctions are marked N/A have not been discussed, since they never allow their past/passive participle in attributive position; cf. Table 4.

	verbal	truly adjectival
intransitive verb	N/A	N/A
transitive verb	+	+
unaccusative verb	+	+
nom-dat verbs that select zijn	+	—
nom-dat verbs that select hebben	N/A	N/A
object experiencer psych-verbs	—	+

Although we have established that past/passive participles of transitive and unaccusative verbs can have a truly adjectival reading, there are cases where this seems to lead to less felicitous results. Consider, for instance, the examples in (70) with the past/passive participle of the transitive verb indienento submit: since the time adverb gisteren is possible, the participle is apparently able to denote a completed action; the impossibility of jarenlang suggests that the participle cannot be used with a truly adjectival (stative) reading. The use of the number sign indicates that (70b) is accepted by some speakers with an iterative reading, but in this reading we are of course dealing with a verbal participle.

Similar facts can be observed with the unaccusative verb vallento fall in (71). The use of the number sign in (71b) again indicates that this example is accepted by some speakers with an iterative meaning.

The special status of the participles ingediend and gevallen can also be understood from the fact, illustrated in (72), that while geslacht and getrouwd can easily be used as predicates in a copular construction, this leads to a marked result in the case of ingediend and gevallen. This contrast is to be expected if only truly adjectival participles can occur in this construction, as will be argued in Section 31.3.1, sub I.

We have used the copular verb blijkento turn out instead of zijn in (72) in order to avoid ambiguity with the passive and perfect-tense constructions. The use of zijn creates ambiguity; this is clear from the fact that the primed examples in (72) become fully acceptable when we add the infinitive te zijnto be. The two primed examples in (73) involve the passive and the perfect auxiliary zijn, respectively, which means that we are dealing with verbal adjectival participles once more. Note that examples such as (72b') are quite common on the internet, but are often taken from newspapers; they may reflect a property of more formal, written texts. Note also that the primeless examples in (73) remain ambiguous: both the verbal and the truly adjectival readings are possible.

This subsection has shown that two classes of transitive and unaccusative verbs should be distinguished: attributively used past/passive participles of the type geslacht/getrouwd can be both verbal and truly adjectival, whereas those of the type ingediend/gevallen cannot be truly adjectival. We leave it to future research to investigate what determines whether a given adjectival participle of a transitive or unaccusative verb can be interpreted as truly adjectival or not.

This subsection shows that truly adjectival present participles can only be derived from object experiencer psych-verbs.

First, the examples in (74) show that present participles usually retain their aspectual properties when used attributively; the intransitive, transitive and unaccusative present participles all express durative aspect, and we must therefore conclude that we are dealing with verbal participles.

This conclusion is further supported by the fact that present participles have similar selection properties as the corresponding verb: this is illustrated in (75) for the intransitive verb wachtento wait, which optionally selects a PP-complement, and the transitive verb lezento read.

The same holds for the transitive verb vervento paint and the unaccusative verb vallen, which can optionally take a complementive.

Second, the examples in (77) show that Nom-dat verbs also resist the formation of truly adjectival present participles, regardless of whether they select hebben or zijn as their auxiliary. This may have to do with the fact that omitting the dative object yields a marked result; the primed examples are only acceptable without the dative object if the goal is somehow recoverable from the context.

A notable exception is the nom-dat verb opvallento strike/attract attention, which has a corresponding gradable, truly adjectival participle; other possible cases mentioned in Sleeman (2011:1582) are vervelendannoying, teleurstellenddisappointing and ontmoedigenddiscouraging. That the participle opvallend is truly adjectival is clear from the fact that it can be amplified by heelvery and can appear in the comparative and superlative forms.

The examples in (79) show that, in keeping with the hypothesis that only truly adjectival participles can be used predicatively (cf. Section 31.3.1, sub I), the present participle opvallend also differs from the present participles of the nom-dat verbs in (77) in that it can occur in complementive position.

Finally, we will show that object experiencer psych-verbs differ from the other verb types discussed above in that they readily allow a truly adjectival reading of their present participles. In this reading, the participle has lost its aspectual properties and generally expresses some intrinsic property of the modified head noun. As might be expected, the object of the corresponding verb can only be expressed if the present participle is verbal: while example (80b) is ambiguous, the presence of the object onsus requires the participle in (80c) to be interpreted as verbal.

Since comparative formation and on- prefixation can only apply to truly adjectival participles (cf. Section 23.3.1, sub II), it stands to reason that the examples in (81) have only the non-aspectual reading; this correctly predicts that the addition of the object onsus leads to unacceptability.

In the case of separable particle verbs such as innemento win oneʼs sympathy in (82a), verbal and truly adjectival present participles differ in their stress properties: like separable verbs, verbal present participles usually have main stress on the particle, while truly adjectival participles have main stress on the verbal part; cf. (82b). Apart from interpretation, this claim is supported by the fact that the stress pattern of the verbal type is required when the object is expressed, as in (82c), and that the adjectival stress pattern of the adjectival type is required when comparative formation has occurred, as in (82d).

Subsection 1 has mentioned that only truly adjectival present participles can be used predicatively; cf. also Section 31.3.1, sub II. The examples in (83) are therefore consistent with the finding in Subsection 1 that only the present participles of object experiencer psych-verbs can be truly adjectival.

It should be noted, however, that there are many adjectival compounds with a present participle of an (in)transitive verb as second member and a noun (84a-i), adjective (84j&k), or particle (84l) as first member; cf. De Haas and Trommelen (1993). That these compounds are adjectives is clear from the fact that they can all be used in predicative position and that many of them can be modified by the degree modifier zeer/heelvery.

The adjectives in (85), which denote properties of substances and materials, provide more potentially problematic cases. Although adjectives of this type are generally compounds, there are some cases where we are dealing with a simplex form. An example is laxerendlaxative in (85c), which is clearly adjectival since it can be used in predicative position and be modified by the degree modifier heelvery.

Finally, example (86) provides a final set of apparent counterexamples to the claim that only the present participles of psych-verbs can be truly adjectival.

Since modification by the adverb heel/zeervery is possible, the examples in (86) must involve true adjectives, which is also consistent with the fact that the forms in question can be used predicatively. However, the doubly-primed examples show that the head nouns of these examples do not correspond to the subject of the corresponding active verbal construction, which may indicate that we are dealing with pseudo-participles. Clearly, these examples deserve further study.