Both comparatives and superlatives may occur in attributive position. In (121), it is demonstrated that the attributive -e ending, which appears on the adjective in the positive degree in (121a), is added to the majorative/maximative affix -er/-st in (121c&d). If we are dealing with periphrastic forms, the -e ending appears on the adjective itself, which is illustrated for the equative in (121b) and for the minorative/minimative in (121c'&d'). The (d)-examples show that the element het, which obligatory co-occurs with predicatively used superlatives, cannot be used if the superlative is used attributively.

The following subsections will show that attributive use of the equative, comparative and superlative may have an effect on the determiner that is selected by the noun phrase.

All three degrees of comparison can occur in predicative position. A special property of the superlative in this position is that it must be preceded by the element het, which is not the case if it appears in attributive position; cf. (121d). So, whereas the (b)- and (c)-examples in (128) show that the equative form even intelligent and the comparative form intelligenter can be used in the copular construction as such, the (d)-examples show that the superlative forms intelligentst and minst intelligent must be preceded by het.

That the superlative must be preceded by het holds not only for the copular construction, but also for the resultative and vinden-constructions in (129).

However, if a superlative predicative adjective is used in an attributively used participle phrase (PartP), the element het is preferably dropped if it is adjacent to the determiner. This will be clear by comparing the (a)-examples in (129) to example (130a). If the determiner and het are separated by another phrase, as in (130b), het must be realized.

      Note that it is sometimes not immediately clear whether we are dealing with a predicatively or an attributively used adjective. This is due to the fact that in certain contexts, noun phrases of the form determiner–adjective–noun may undergo N-ellipsis, which results in the string determiner–adjective. For instance, the noun phrase de blauwe avondjurk'the blue evening gown' can occasionally surface as de blauwe [e]'the blue one', in which e stands for the phonetically empty head noun; cf. Section 5.4. For our present topic, it is relevant to note that N-ellipsis may also apply in predicative constructions such as (131).

Consequently, when we are dealing with a neuter noun, predicative constructions like (132a&a'), which take a reduced noun phrase like het mooiste [e] as their predicate, can easily be confused with predicative constructions like (132b&b'), which take the superlative form het mooist as their predicate.

This problem of confusing the two constructions is even enhanced by the fact that, in colloquial speech, the predicatively used superlative is also occasionally realized with a schwa ending. An example such as De eerste foto is het mooist(e) cannot be analyzed as in (133a), given that the empty noun e must be construed as identical with the noun foto and hence trigger the non-neuter article de, which leaves us only the analysis in (133b). This suggests that the strings in the (a)-examples of (132) may also be assigned an alternative analysis involving a predicative AP.

      A special case of predicative use of the majorative is given in (134). In this construction the copula verb worden'to become' or the causative verb maken'to make' must be used. If the adjective is positively valued, as in (134a), (quasi-)negation must be present. If the adjective denotes a negatively valued property, as in (134b), an adverbial phrase like alleen maar'only' must be present. The preposition phrase er ... op is non-referential and can never be replace by a PP of the form P + NP.

In the case of a minorative, the situation is reversed: negatively evaluated adjectives require negation to be present, and positively evaluated adjectives require the presence of alleen maar. Quasi-negation yields a marked result in (135a&a'), and therefore we have not included it here.

The three degrees of comparison can also occur in adverbial position. Example (136d) shows that just like predicatively used superlatives, adverbially used superlatives normally must be preceded by het.

However, if a superlative adverbial phrase is contained in an attributively used participle phrase, the element het is preferably omitted if the superlative is adjacent to the determiner de. This will become clear by comparing (136d) to example (137a). If the determiner and het are separated by some other phrase, as in (137b), het becomes compulsory again.

In the partitive genitive construction, equatives or comparatives can be used, but superlatives are blocked. We return to this fact, which is illustrated in (138), in Section 7.2.3, sub IE.