That we are dealing with three different, but homophonous, nouns in (158) is not only clear from the meaning differences between the three constructions but also from the fact that the nouns have different genders. Consider again the examples in (158a&b): the noun soort'species' in (158a) is non-neuter, which is clear from the fact that it takes the non-neuter demonstratives deze/die'this/that': deze/die soort aap/apen'this/that species of monkey/monkeys'. The noun soort'kind of' in (158b), on the other hand, is neuter, which is clear from the fact that it takes the neuter demonstratives dit/dat'this/that': dit/dat soort auto/autoʼs. It is difficult to determine the gender of the noun soort'N-like entity' in (158c) given that it differs from the other two nouns in not allowing these definite demonstratives at all.
      It can further be noted that the non-neuter noun soort'species' imposes gender restrictions on N2; it can be followed by singular, non-neuter nouns like aap'monkey' but not by singular, neuter nouns like paard'horse'. The neuter noun soort'kind of' does not impose similar restrictions on N2, which can therefore be both neuter and non-neuter. The third use of soort is also compatible with both neuter and non-neuter N2s.

Non-neuter N1s like kleur'color' and maat'size' in the primeless examples in (161) often behave like the non-neuter noun soort'species' in not allowing neuter N2s. Neuter nouns like formaat'size', genre'type' in the primed examples do not impose a similar restriction on N2; cf. Schermer-Vermeer (2008). It seems, however, that the status of mixed cases with non-neuter N1s and neuter N2s also depends on the choice of N2: an example such as die kleur hemd in (161a) is much more degraded than die kleur behang'that color of wallpaper' in (159a), which also involves a neuter N2 but can actually be found on the internet.

Another conspicuous difference between the examples in (158) is that the non-neuter noun soort'species' in (158a) can appear as the second member of a compound with a similar kind of meaning, whereas this is completely impossible with the N1 soort'N-like entity' in (158c); the compound appelsoort in (162c) is of course acceptable but only as the counterpart of the binominal construction dat soort apple'that species of apple'. Example (162b) further shows that the result with the neuter N1 soort'kind of' in (158b) is somewhat marginal; furthermore it seems hard to interpret this compound with the “resemblance” reading typical of this noun.

The examples in (163) show that nouns like kleur'color', kwaliteit'quality' and maat'size' behave just like the non-neuter noun soort'species'. All these examples occur frequently on the internet.

The noun soort'N-like entity' also differs from the other two nouns in that it does not allow plural formation: example (164c) is acceptable but only under the same kind of reading as (164a) or (164b); it does not have the interpretation “two apple-like thngs”. The plural examples in (164a) and (164b) impose different selection restrictions on N2: N2 must be plural in the former, but can be singular in the latter.

      A caveat is in order here, however. For convenience, we have translated the non-neuter noun soort'species' in (158a) by means of the English noun species. This translation may actually be too narrow, since it may also be combined with N2s like postzegels'stamps' and substance nouns like koffie'coffee'.

This may raise the question as to whether we are really dealing with the plural form of the neuter noun soort'kind of' in (164b); it may actually involve the plural form of the non-neuter noun. A reason for assuming this is that the neuter noun cannot be modified by means of a quantifier like elk'each'. Since nouns that have a plural form generally do allow modification by elk'each', the ungrammaticality of (166b) casts some doubt on the assumption that we are dealing with the plural form of the neuter noun soort in (164b). We leave this for future research.

      It is hard to determine whether nouns like kleur'color', kwaliteit'quality' and maat'size' behave like the non-neuter noun soort'species' with respect to pluralization; the examples in (167) show that the plural form kleuren can readily be followed by a substance noun, but not by a count noun. We leave establishing the precise status of examples such as (167) to future research as well.

The constructions in (158) are similar in that they normally do not allow a definite determiner. However, this restriction is relaxed in the case of (158a&b), if the construction is modified by a relative clause. The binominal construction in (168c) is acceptable but only under a reading comparable to (168a) or (168b). Example (169) shows that a noun like kleur behaves like the non-neuter noun soort'species' in this respect.

      Attributive adjectives can license the indefinite determiner een on the nouns soort'species' and soort'kind' but only if they precede N1. This is shown in (170); the primed examples are only acceptable under the “of a sort” reading (that is, (170a') can be interpreted as “a beautiful monkey of a sort”), in which case an indefinite article must be present. The examples in (171) show again that a noun like kleur behaves like the non-neuter noun soort'species' in this respect.

Another difference involves the insertion of the preposition van'of' between N1 and N2. The examples in (172) show that this is easily possible in examples such as (158c). Examples such as (172a) sound somewhat marginal. They can be found on the internet but the number of cases is relatively small: A Google search (12/1/2012) on the string [deze soort van] resulted in about 340 hits, many of which did not instantiate the relevant construction. Judgments on examples such as (172b) vary among speakers, but examples of this construction do occur frequently in informal spoken Dutch and can readily be found on the internet; a second Google search on the string [dit soort van] resulted in 354 hits, and a cursory look at the results revealed that most cases instantiated the relevant construction.

The examples in (173) with the indefinite article eenare all are acceptable but only on a reading similar to (172c). Note that addition of an attributive adjective triggers a more referential reading of the noun soort, which makes the example unacceptable.

The examples in (174) show that with nouns like kleur'color', kwaliteit'quality' and maat'size', insertion of van gives rise to an unacceptable result. These nouns therefore seem to pattern again with the non-neuter noun soort'species'.

The constructions in (158) also differ with respect to the question what the syntactic head of the construction is. Example (175a) is only fully acceptable if the non-neuter noun soort'species' triggers agreement on the finite verb, which must therefore be considered the syntactic head of the construction. In (175b), on the other hand, agreement can be triggered either by N1 or by N2, which shows that either of the two nouns can act as the syntactic head of the construction. With the noun soort'N-like entity', it is always N2 that functions as the syntactic head of the construction that triggers agreement.

Note, however, that if the neuter noun soort'kind of' is preceded by the definite article and functions as the antecedent of a relative clause, agreement of N2 and the verb in the matrix clause gives rise to a degraded result. If the relative pronoun takes N2 as its antecedent, as in (176b), agreement between N2 and the finite verb becomes perhaps slightly better, but the result is still marked.

      The nouns type and model in (177a&b) do not allow N2 to trigger agreement on the verb, which suggests that they fall into the same category as the non-neuter noun soort'species'; however, giving judgments is somewhat complicated by the fact that model does not readily take a plural N2, and that the noun type is also more common with a singular N2. Nouns like kleur'color' also require that N1 triggers agreement on the verb.

The examples in (178) show that, as in the QCs, N2 may act as the semantic head of all binominal soort-constructions. The requirement that the verb verzamelen takes a plural count noun or a substance noun as its direct object is satisfied by N2; if N2 is a singular count noun, the result is ungrammatical.

This section has discussed some of the properties of the non-quantificational constructions in (158), and it has been shown that the three homophonous forms are different in various respects. Since these forms have not been investigated systematically in the literature, future research on the three constructions in question will undoubtedly reveal more systematic differences. Furthermore, this section has shown that the behavior of the other nouns that may enter the non-quantificational construction is similar to that of the non-neuter noun soort'species' in (158a).