The most conspicuous property of the N van een N construction is that, as a general rule, the two nouns agree in number: if N1 is singular, N2 must be singular as well; if N1 is plural, N2 must also be plural. This is illustrated in (199).

As is shown in (200), theN van een N construction resembles in this respect the copular construction, in which number agreement between the subject and the predicative noun phrase is generally obligatory as well; see Section 8.2, sub IV, for some exceptions. This supports the idea that the two nouns in the N van een N construction are in a predicative relation.

      Occasionally, however, a predicative singular noun can be predicated of a plural subject, as in (201a); this is especially the case if the predicate is a mass noun, as in (201b). It has been claimed in Bennis et al. (1998) that, for at least some people, the corresponding N van een N constructions in the primed examples are also acceptable (to various degrees). If the primed examples are really grammatical (we were not able to find any examples of this sort on the internet), this stresses the similarity of the N van een N and the copular construction, and hence supports the idea that N1 and N2 are in a predicative relation in the N van een N construction.

      It has also been claimed that examples such as (202b), in which N2 is a mass noun, are at least marginally possible for some speakers (we found one example on the internet). However, the corresponding copular construction is absolutely ungrammatical. It should be noted, however, that in English, singular mass nouns that trigger plural agreement on the finite verb (like the police in The police are coming) can occur as the subject in a copular construction with a plural nominal predicate: The police are idiots. If a mass noun triggers singular agreement on the finite verb, on the other hand, this is impossible: %The government is/are idiots. The unacceptability of Dutch examples such as (202a) may therefore be due to the fact that all Dutch mass nouns trigger singular agreement on the finite verb.

A hotly debated issue with respect to the N van een N construction is whether N1 or N2 is the semantic head of the construction. The fact that in constructions such as (203a), the N van een N construction can be replaced a noun phrase headed either by N1 or by N2 has given rise to the idea that the construction is ambiguous and that either of the two nouns can function as the semantic head of the construction.

This conclusion seems to be mistaken, however, since the acceptability of (203b) is just due to the fact that the noun phrase twee schatten is used as a (metaphoric) predicate, just as in the N van een N construction. If the binominal phrase is used as an argument, as in (204), the direct object twee schatten in (204b) cannot be construed metaphorically, but must refer to entities that are part of the regular denotation set of the noun schat'treasure'; as a result (204b) refer to a different state of affairs than (204c). The fact that (204c) can be used to refer to the same state of affairs as (204a), on the other hand, shows unambiguously that it is N2 that acts as the semantic head of the N van een N construction.

Since the two nouns in the N van een N construction generally agree in number, it is hard to say which of the two nouns triggers agreement on the finite verb. In order to determine that, we have to take recourse to the more exceptional and perhaps disputable cases in (201b) and (202b). Our own judgments suggest that non-linguistic factors may be the determining factor when we are dealing with a singular N1: in (205a) singular agreement seems to be preferred, whereas in (205a') it is plural agreement that is preferred. In examples such as (205b), in which N1 is plural, we always seem to have plural agreement. The data in (205) show that the fact that N2 is the semantic head of the construction does not necessarily imply that it is also the syntactic head of the construction; cf. the discussion in 4.1.1.2, where we reached a similar conclusion for the quantificational binominal construction.

Another way of determining the syntactic head of the construction is by considering what determiner the N van een N construction takes. If the definite determiner agrees in gender with N1 we conclude that N1 is the syntactic head of the construction, and if it agrees with N2 we conclude that N2 is the syntactic head. Unfortunately, we cannot show this on the basis of the definite articles de and het, since we have already seen in (197a) that definite articles cannot be used in the N van een N construction. Gender agreement can, however, also be illustrated by means of demonstrative pronouns: the demonstrative die'that/those' is non-neuter and/or plural, whereas the demonstrative dat'that' is singular neuter.

The examples in (206a&b) and (207) show that the demonstratives can readily be used if the two nouns select the same demonstrative, that is, if they both select die or dat. According to some speakers the mixed singular examples are excluded. Other speakers do accept at least some of these examples. In the case of (206c&c'), judgments appear to differ among these speakers: some prefer the primeless example, in which the demonstrative agrees with N1 but not with N2, whereas others prefer the primed example, in which the demonstrative agrees with N2. The judgments on the 9d)-examples in (206), on the other hand, seem clearer: the primed example is generally rejected, whereas the primeless example is accepted by at least some speakers. Similar judgments have been collected with the possessive pronouns onze[-neuter,+sg] 'our' and ons[+neuter,+sg] 'our' in (208). We refer the reader to Everaert (1992) for a detailed discussion.

      Table 4 summarizes the above findings. Examples in which the determiner agrees in gender with the two nouns are always possible. If the two nouns differ in gender, agreement of the determiner and N1 is obligatory for at least one group of speakers. For another group of speakers, the gender of N1 affects the agreement pattern: if N1 is -neuter, agreement between the determiner and N2 is preferred, but if N1 is +neuter, agreement of the determiner and N2 is also blocked for them. It goes without saying that those cases in which agreement is entirely absent give rise to the most degraded results, which is not reflected by the judgments in the table.

      To conclude this discussion of agreement, we want to point out that the set of determiners preceding the N van een N construction is rather limited. The demonstratives die/dat in (206) and (207) above, for example, do not really have a deictic function, but rather seem to express a kind of affective meaning, as can also be found in, for example, die Jan toch!, which is said of Jan when he is doing/saying something special and the speaker wants to express his approval or (mild) disapproval of what Jan is doing/saying. As is shown by (209a), using demonstratives in their deictic function generally leads to a bad result, just like the use of the definite article does. Only in very special contexts are “true” demonstratives possible. An interrogative example such as (209b), for instance, seems possible provided that the speaker is, for instance, hugging the cat in question thus showing that he himself is fond of it, but not when he is just pointing at it. In other words, (209b) is only possible if used as a kind of rhetorical question.

      The fact that the N van een N construction conveys a strong personal evaluation of the referent of the construction may also account for the fact that first person possessive pronouns are more commonly used in the construction than the second or third person ones. If acceptable, the use of second and third person possessive pronouns generally conveys an ironic message; the speaker of (210b), for example, confronts the hearer with a fact that is not compatible with the description of the cats as being “schatten”.

      Due to restrictions like these, the set of determiners preceding the N van een N construction is largely restricted to the cases discussed above and the indefinite articles een/∅ and derivatives of them like zoʼn'such a', geen'no' and wat een'what a'. Some examples involving these indefinite determiners are given in (211).

Modification of the nouns in the construction is subject to various restrictions. Inserting an attributive adjective immediately before N2, for example, is impossible; the only exception are classifying adjectives in collocations like Cyperse kat'tabby' in (212c).

Using an attributive adjective modifying N1 is possible, but generally these modifiers are amplifying or affective in nature and do not attribute a property to N1, which is of course not surprising given that N1 is not referential in nature.

      According to some, an attributive adjective preceding N1 can also be used to modify N2, which would be compatible with the fact that it is N2 that acts as the semantic head of the construction. Some examples, taken from Den Dikken (1995b), are given in (214).

Insofar as the examples in (214) are acceptable, it is clear that roodharig must be modifying N2. Note that the data in (214) are in accordance with the findings with respect to gender agreement in Table 4: the (a)-examples show that if N1 is neuter and N2 is non-neuter, the adjective must agree with N1, whereas the (b)-examples show that if N1 is non-neuter and N2 is neuter, speakers seem to vary with respect to the noun that triggers agreement — for some speakers it is N1, as in (214b), whereas for others it is N2, as in (214b'). So again, we have to conclude that the feature +neuter N1 blocks gender agreement with N2 for all speakers.
      Although attributively used adjectives may precede N1, postnominal modifiers cannot immediately follow it, as is shown in (215a). Probably, the impossibility of modifying N1 is again due to the fact that N1 is not referential in nature. Example (215b) shows that postmodifiers following N2 are possible, but in these cases we cannot immediately decide whether the PP modifies N2 or the complete N van een N construction.

In order to find out whether the modifier in (215b) modifies N2 or the complete N van een N construction, we may take into account relative clauses such as those given in (216). The fact that the relative pronoun must agree in gender with N2 suggests that it is this noun that is modified, and not the complete N van een N construction.

The indefinite article preceding N2 cannot be replaced by other kinds of determiners. The indefinite article seems sensitive to the number of N2: if N2 is singular the indefinite article is een'a', and if it is plural the article has the null form.

The “%” preceding een in (217b) is due to the fact that whereas Bennis et al. (1998) claim that examples such as schatten van een katten are possible, other speakers consider the result highly marked at best. Still, the Npl van een Npl construction is fully acceptable for all speakers in exclamative contexts like (218a), in which case both nouns are preceded by the indefinite article een. As shown in (218b), such a combination of een and a plural noun is not restricted to N van een N constructions of this kind, but are typical of this kind of exclamative constructions.

This suggests that the indefinite article and N2 can simply be analyzed as a noun phrase. There is, however, a problem with this conclusion; een is also possible with N2s that normally cannot be preceded by an indefinite article. The most conspicuous case involves proper nouns: normally, a proper noun like Marie is not preceded by an indefinite article (*een Marie), yet in (219) it is obligatorily present.

The same thing can perhaps be shown on the basis of substance nouns, which normally cannot be preceded by an indefinite article either: een pracht van een wijn/kaas (lit.: a beauty of a wine/cheese). However, a caveat is in order, since speakers tend to no longer construe the N2s in such cases as substance nouns. Instead, the noun wijn will, for instance, be interpreted as referring to a certain kind of N2, and the N2 kaas as referring to an actual object.
      There are also proper nouns that can be preceded by a definite, but not by an indefinite article, for example de/*een Westerkerk or het/*een paleis op de Dam. Again, these proper nouns must be preceded by een in the N van een N construction; note that the definite article, which is normally present, cannot be used in these binominal constructions.

The facts in (219) and (220) have led to the suggestion that een is actually not part of the noun phrase headed by N2, but is present to perform some other function; see Bennis et al. (1998) for discussion.

Since the preposition van cannot be replaced by any other preposition, it has been suggested that it is a spurious preposition. Alexiadou et al. (2007: 246) suggest that this can also be motivated by the fact that, unlike true van-PPs, the sequence van + noun phrase cannot undergo pronominalization. Another fact that may point in this direction is that this sequence cannot be moved independently of the sequence preceding van.

Bennis et al. (1998) also adopt the claim that van is a spurious preposition and they have suggested that its syntactic function is to signal the predicative relation between N1 and N2; they claim that, in a sense, van is comparable to the copula zijn'to be' in a copular construction.

The N van een N construction can be used in all regular NP-positions, that is, both as an argument and as a nominal predicate. In (222), we give examples in which the construction functions as a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, the complement of a preposition, and a predicate in a copular construction.