Geen is remarkably flexible when it comes to the types of noun phrase that it can combine with. It is possible for geen to combine with count nouns of all genders and numbers. Geen can also be construed with non-count nouns. Examples are given in Table 3.

	singular		plural
	-neuter	+neuter
count nouns	geen stad no town	geen huis no house	geen steden/huizen no towns/houses
non-count nouns	geen ellende/wijn no misery /wine	geen verdriet/water no sorrow/water	n.a.

Though geen can in principle combine with plural count noun phrases, there are restrictions on the use of plurals in combination with geen: whereas the plural noun schepen'ships' can be used with geen in the primeless sentences of (246), this is impossible in the primed examples that feature the more special “not a single” reading of geen — this reading requires that the noun is singular, as in (222) in Section 5.1.5.1, sub III.

The ungrammaticality of the primed examples in (246) matches that of the corresponding cases featuring geen enkel(e)/één in (247b); that these examples are unacceptable is not surprising from the point of view of their meaning “not a single”. What is interesting, though, is that enkel(e) is compatible with plural noun phrases in other contexts: enkele schepen is perfect as the plural counterpart of een enkel schip'a single ship'. This means that it is not entirely clear what causes the unacceptability of (247b) with enkel(e).

      There are also many pluralia tantum that cannot be preceded by geen, like tropen or Verenigde Staten in (248a&b). The reason for this lies in the fact that tropen and Verenigde Staten are always definite expressions, with which geen cannot be combined. If the plurale tantum can be indefinite, like hersens/hersenen in (248c&c'), geen is possible.

      The acceptability of using geen with non-count nouns extends to the cases of bare-stem and ge-nominalizations in (249).

Inf-nominalization like (250a) are generally awkward, although (250b&c) show that there are idiomatic examples involving inf-nominalizations.

      When we now take a birdʼs eye view of the noun phrase types with which geen can be construed, we find that only a subset can occur with the indefinite article een in neutral contexts; een does not combine with plurals or non-count nouns (except in the special contexts discussed in Section 5.1.4.2). An approach to geen that would hold that it is the result of the fusion of niet and the indefinite article een would hence fail to cover the entire spectrum of possibilities in the distribution of geen. A particularly tough nut to crack for such an analysis of geen would be the case in (251), in which geen combines with an element that does not seem to qualify as nominal at all.

The expression buitenspel'offside' used in sports is a compound originating from a PP headed by buiten (lit.: outside (of) play) and it does not show any earmarks of nominalness; for example, it cannot be pluralizedor used as the input for diminutivization, nor does it combine with any determiners: *de/*?het/*een buitenspel. In particular, the fact that buitenspel cannot be construed with the indefinite article een in any context (not even in exclamatives, which otherwise feature een rather profusely: *Een buitenspel dat het was!'an offside that it was') makes a fusion approach to the geen found in (251) difficult to uphold. Laxer variants of the fusion analysis which allow geen to result from merger of niet and the null article ∅ as well fare no better in this regard, unless it can be successfully argued that buitenspel features the null article.
      Geen can also combine with the nominal part of verbal N+V collocations of the type illustrated in (252), in which the primeless geen examples alternate with the primed examples featuring the negative adverb niet. There is a tendency to spell the members of the collocation as individual words in the examples with geen but as a single word in the examples with niet, although all variants can be found on the internet.

Section 5.1.2.3, sub I, has shown that N+V collocations of this type are like particle verbs in the sense that the dependent nominal is obligatorily split off the verbal base if the verb undergoes verb-second, that is, moves into the second position of the main clause. It seems that in such cases, there is a clear preference to use a noun phrase with geen; examples with geen occur frequently on the internet, whereas the frequency of examples with niet is conspicuously low.

The same contrast can be observed if the verb is part of a verb cluster and non-adjacent to the noun, as in (254). These facts suggests that N+V collocations are actually ambiguous; if the noun combines with geen it functions a regular object, while it is part of the verb if it is preceded by niet; see Booij (2010:ch.4) for a similar conclusion.

This suggestion is further supported by the fact that if the noun is also part of the verb cluster, as in (255), it is niet that must be used. Note that in these examples there is again a tendency to spell the collocations as single words.

Section 5.1.2.3, sub I, has shown that topicalization of the main verb cannot strand the noun but must pied-pipe it. The examples in (256) show that topicalization of the N+V collocation is excluded with geen and strands the negative adverb niet in its original position. This suggests that the examples in (256) are related to those in (255a&b), in which the N+V collocation behave like a single word, rather than to those in (254) where they are clearly construed independently and the nouns form a constituent with the negative article geen.

This fact that geen forms a syntactic constituent with the nouns piano/auto again suggests that geen cannot be the result of fusion of niet and een: nouns like piano/auto never feature an indefinite article in N+V collocations, nor are they likely to have a null determiner; they are truly bare nouns, which nonetheless can still be combined with geen.

It is impossible for geen to combine directly with personal pronouns; in (257), we have illustrated this for the plural pronouns. An exception must be made, however, for the doubly-primed examples in which geen is followed by a case-inflected form of the pronoun. These forms are relics from older stages of the language and belong to the formal register; in present-day Dutch the partitive constructions in the singly-primed examples would be used.

      Geen does normally not appear with proper nouns referring to persons, although a somewhat special case was discussed in Section 5.1.2.1, sub III. Nevertheless, geographical proper nouns can sometimes be construed with geen, particularly in contexts in which they are premodified by some adjective, as illustrated in the (a)-examples of (258). Another instantiation of the combination of proper nouns with geen is formed by the names of languages, as in the (b)-examples of (258). In the (a)-examples geen can be replaced with niet een, whereas in the (b)-examples only geen is possible.

This subsection investigates the restrictions that geen poses on other elements within the noun phrase, such as determiners, quantificational elements and attributive adjectives.