Certain nouns denoting a profession of social importance like dokter'doctor' or dominee'vicar' can be used as vocatives, that is, in a function similar to that of the proper noun in (108a). In this function, exemplified in (108b), the noun phrase is determinerless.

Dutch has an extended, argumental use of the vocative where the speaker uses dokter/dominee as the subject of a yes/no-question, addressing the question to the person referred to by the noun. As illustrated in (109a), the profession nouns can then optionally be preceded by a definite determiner. Finally, constructions such as (109b) are typically used in addressing persons who would use the “label” dokter/dominee as a vocative for the person under discussion.

      Other profession nouns, like ober'waiter', can also be used as vocatives, as is shown in (110a). They are, however, not normal in constructions like (110b&c). Example (110b) is unacceptable without the article, and is stylistically marked even with the article (it has a patronizing ring to it); example (110c) is excluded without the article, and with the article the noun phrase acts as a normal referring expression.

      Vocatives like mevrouw'madam' and meneer'sir' can be used in the same way. In examples such as (111a), the vocatives are used as a common way of politely addressing an adult person. In examples such as (111b) and especially (111c), on the other hand, the social rank of the addressee becomes more prominent: mevrouw and meneer are then used to express a difference in social status with the addressee being placed high(er) on the social scale. These examples feel somewhat old-fashioned. Note that the use of an article is not possible.

      Kinship nouns like grootmoeder'grandmother' in (112) can also be used in a way similar to the nouns in (109) and (111). As mevrouw/meneer in (111), these kinship nouns are never preceded by a definite determiner. Note that in all these examples the more intimate noun oma, which comes somewhat closer to a true vocative, would normally be used.

      In a sense, kinship nouns can be much more freely used than the “profession” nouns in (109). In (109c), the speaker refers to a certain person by using the label the listener would normally use while addressing that person. Comparable examples containing bare kinship nouns like vader/pappa, on the other hand, are often several ways ambiguous, depending on the context. Like (109c), example (113) has a reading where vader/pappa is the “label” normally used by the listener (but not necessarily by the speaker himself) in addressing the person under discussion: this is the “your daddy” reading in (113i). In addition, it also has a reading in which the speaker uses the “label” vader/pappa to refer to himself, that is, (113ii) can be uttered by the addresseeʼs father himself. Finally, the sentence can be uttered by the person who normally uses the “label” vader/pappa to address the person under discussion: this is the “my daddy” reading in (113iii). In all three interpretations of (113) we are dealing with extended uses of bare vocatives.

      Finally, consider the examples in (114). Since the bare noun phrases in (114) are “labels”, like dokter in (109b&c) or vader in (113), it does not seem unreasonable to bring up these examples under the general rubric of vocatives and vocative-like constructions. These bare noun phrases occur in PPs, nominal predicates and argument positions (like the subject).

The bare noun phrases in (114) alternate with the examples in (115) involving ordinal numerals. In these examples, the use of the definite determiner is obligatory since noun phrases containing ordinal numerals do not normally occur in the absence of a determiner.