The rules for the formation of complex cardinal numerals are themselves rather complex and often leave room for several alternative options. Three processes may be involved; see also Booij (2010:ch.8). The first is derivation, that is, cases in which the complex form is derived by means of a bound morpheme. This is mainly the case with the formation of those numerals from 20 to 90 that correspond to multiples of 10; two examples are given in (2a). The second process seems to involve compounding, and forms complex cardinal numerals from simpler ones that can occur independently. It should be noted, however, that at least some of these complex forms may plausibly be analyzed as phrases, which is also reflected in the orthographical rules, which require some of these complex numerals to be written as one word, but others as separate words; some examples are given in (2b). Finally, complex numerals can be formed by means of coordination with en'and/plus', as in (2c). Although this process results in formations that are phrase-like, the orthographic rules require a complex form to be written as a single word if it refers to a number below 100, which may be related to the fact that the element en must be obligatorily realized in such cases. The complex numerals above 100, on the other hand, must be written as separate words, which may be related to the fact that the conjunction en is optional in these cases.

      Example (3) provides the cardinal numerals from 0 to 19. The numerals corresponding to 0 to 12 (given in small caps) are all base forms. The remaining numerals are compound-like with the numeral tien acting as the second member of the compound. The first member is one of the numerals corresponding to 5 to 9, or one of the irregular bound morphemes der- and veer-, which also feature in dertig'thirty' and veertig'forty' (these irregular forms are given in italics).

Example (4) shows that the numerals corresponding to the multiples of 10 from 20 to 90 all feature the bound morpheme -tig. Most of these forms are regular derivations from the simple numerals in Example (3), but there are also less regular formations. The first is twintig'twenty', in which the morpheme -tig is attached to the form twin-, which does not appear elsewhere in the numeral system. Other more or less irregular forms are dertig'thirty' and veertig'forty', which are derived from the bound morphemes der- and veer-, which also appear in dertien'thirteen' and veertien'fourteen'. Finally, there is tachtig'eighty' where the first morpheme features a /t/ in the onset which is not found in the base form acht'eight'. The remaining numbers between 20 and 100 are phrase-like, and are built up by means of coordination of one of the numerals from 1 to 9 and one of the forms in the first column in example (4) by means of the conjunction-like element en. As was mentioned above, these combinations are written as single words; the orthographical system apparently treats these combinations as compounds employing the “binding” morpheme -en-. Some examples are given in the second and third columns of the table in (4).

The first column of table (5) gives the names of the numerals that correspond to 10 to the power of 2, 3, 6, 9 and 12. Names for larger numbers do exist, but these are normally not found in colloquial speech. Numerals referring to multiples of these numbers are again compound-like and are normally formed by placing one of the numerals between 0 and 999 in front of the numeral in the first column of table (5). In the second and third column some examples are given.

Four additional remarks on the higher cardinal numerals in Example (5) are in order.