One reason for assuming that the phrase headed by N2 is not a DP is that it can never be preceded by an article, a demonstrative or a possessive pronoun. This is shown in (100) both for count and for non-count nouns. By way of contrast, the primed examples give the corresponding partitive constructions, in which the projection of N2 does act as a full DP; see Section 4.1.1.6 for a discussion of this construction.

One might suggest that the ungrammaticality of the primeless examples is due to the fact that the determiners make the projection headed by N2 definite. It should be noted, however, that an indefinite article cannot be used either, as is shown by (101a); compare this QC with the partitive construction in (101b), in which the indefinite article must be expressed.

Another reason for assuming that N2 does not head a DP is that substituting a pronoun for the projection of N2 yields an unacceptable result. The ungrammaticality of (102a&b) is not conclusive since we are dealing with definite pronouns. Example (102c) shows, however, that existential quantifiers are excluded as well. By way of comparison, the primed examples give the corresponding partitive constructions; note that van het/ze'of it/them' is not possible, but this is due to the general rule that replaces the inanimate pronouns het/ze'it/them' with the R-pronoun er in this syntactic context.

Although the examples above support the idea that N2 does not head a DP, we cannot conclude that N2 is a bare noun. This is clear from the fact that it may take an argument, as is shown for the relational noun vriendjes'friends' in (103a). Further, N2 can be modified by all sorts of modifiers: an attributive adjective in (103b), an appositive phrase in (103c), an adjunct PP in (103d), and a restrictive relative clause in (103e).

For completeness’ sake, note that N2 can be modified by an adjective in the positive or the comparative form but not an adjective in the superlative form. This might be due to the fact that noun phrases containing a superlative are definite: de/*een aardigste student'the/a kindest student'. Finally, note that a pseudo-superlative like alleraardigste could be used, but these do not necessarily trigger a definite interpretation.

Cardinal numerals and quantifiers cannot precede N2. This, however, has no bearing on what the size of the projection of N2 is, given that a plausible explanation for the impossibility of (105) can be found in the fact that they are in the scope of the N1, which also has quantifying force; cf. *veel vijf studenten'many five students'.

The claim that N2 heads a projection that is somewhat smaller than a DP can also be supported by evidence involving initial coordination, that is, coordination by means of discontinuous coordinators like of ... of ...'either ... or ...' and zowel ... als ...'both ... and ...'. In the primeless examples in (106) the two conjuncts each include an article so we may safely conclude that we are dealing with full DPs, and we see that the result of initial coordination is fine; in the primed examples, on the other hand, we are dealing with the smaller phrases oude mannen'old men' and oude vrouwen'old women', and the result of initial coordination is unacceptable.

When N2s head a phrase that is smaller than a full noun phrase, we predict that initial coordination of phrases headed by such nouns is impossible. As is shown in the primed examples in (107) for quantifier and collective nouns by means of zowel ... als ..., this expectation is indeed borne out. Note that it is not coordination itself that causes the ungrammaticality, since the primeless examples with the conjunction en'and' are fully acceptable.

The primeless examples in (108) show that the projection headed by N2 can never be moved independently from N1; the noun phrase consisting of N1 and N2 cannot be split. The primed examples show that the same thing holds for numerals and quantifiers: Standard Dutch does not allow this so-called split topicalization construction. That the judgments on the primeless and the primed examples are related is clear from the fact that those dialects that do allow the primeless examples also allow the split patterns in the primed examples. We refer the reader to Coppen (1991), Vos (1999), and Van Hoof (2006) for a discussion of split topicalization.

That the phrase headed by N2 and the nominal projection following a numeral sometimes exhibit similar behavior is also clear from the fact already discussed in Section 4.1.1.3, sub IVA, that both can be replaced by quantitative er if N1 is a quantifier or measure noun. This again shows that the projection of N2 is smaller than DP, given that DPs cannot be replaced in this way.