The first set of possible non-predicative AP-complements is made up by APs selected by measure verbs like durento last, wegento weigh, and kostento cost, as in (426); cf. Klooster (1972). The judgments on these examples vary between speakers and from case to case: while lang durento last long in (426a) is accepted by everyone, the collocation zwaar wegento weigh heavy in examples such as (426b) is generally deemed to be unacceptable in the prescriptive literature (cf. onzetaal.nl/taaladvies/advies/zwaar-wegen-veel-wegen) and duur kostento be expensive/to cost a lot in (426c) is also considered unacceptable by many speakers (see onzetaal.nl/taaladvies/advies/duur-kosten). Note that the examples in (426) are acceptable to all speakers if the AP is replaced by a nominal measure phrase.

Mars (1981) argues that it is reasonable to assume that these examples are all grammatical, on the basis of a rather superficial resemblance to middle constructions such as Het fietspad fietst lekkerIt feels good to ride in the bike lane. (cf. Section 3.2.2.3) and the more convincing argument that they are easily found in older literary sources (back to the late 16th century) and are still frequently used. We agree with this conclusion, not only because examples like these are still common, but also because the (b) and (c)-examples in (427) show that they improve greatly if the adjective is modified by e.g. tetoo or genoegenough; the question marks in the (c)-examples are used to indicate that some speakers may still find them marked. Note in passing that not all verbs that take a nominal measure phrase can be combined with an AP, as can be seen from examples such as De totale prijs bedraagt vijftig euro/*duurthe total price amounts to fifty euroʼs/*expensive.

The resistance to the use of the adjectives in (426b&c) may be related to the fact that the intended meaning can be expressed quite easily by the use of a copula, as illustrated in (428). The fact that the nominal measure phrases in these examples are marked in comparison to those in (426) may lend further credence to the idea that the examples in (426) and (428) are somehow in competition.

Another argument for assuming that the judgments on the examples in (426) are due to competition with the examples in (428) is provided by the contrast in acceptability between the two verbs in the examples in (429), in which the adjective zwaar is used in a metaphorical sense; since the copular in the primed examples is unacceptable, we correctly predict that the primeless examples are acceptable to all speakers.

The idea that the examples in (426) and (428) are competing might lead to the claim that the adjectives in (426) are actually used as complementives, just like the adjectives in (428), and this, in turn, might lead to the idea that the verbs durento last, wegento weigh and kostento cost are semi-copular verbs. The fact that these verbs cannot be passivized when they take a nominal measure phrase is sometimes given as evidence for this claim, but it should be noted that this may also be due to the inanimate/non-agentive nature of the subject of the clause.

A slightly better argument for the claim that (adjectival) complements of measure verbs are complementives is that they must precede the clause-final verbs (if present). This can be seen from the judgments on the word order of the embedded counterparts in (431) of the examples in (426).

As far as we know, however, there are no conclusive arguments that favor one specific syntactic analysis.

The verbs hebbento have and krijgento get can also be combined with an AP, as shown in (432). However, Section A28.2.1, sub IB, shows that in such cases we are also dealing with a complementive (i.e. predicative complement), and the verbs hebben and krijgen can be regarded as semi-copular verbs.

The last case of a verb that potentially selects a non-predicative AP is the verb wonento live/reside. As shown in (433a), this verb must be combined with either an AP or a locational PP. There are other verbs in the same semantic group that obligatorily take a PP, but cannot take an AP; two cases are given in (433b&c).

It is safe to assume that we are not dealing with a predicatively used AP in (433a), because the clause does not contain an argument of which the AP could be predicated. The subject is certainly not a candidate; for instance, (433a) does not express that Jan is beautiful. Nevertheless, some implicit predication relation seems to be implied: it is the environment in which Jan lives that is claimed to be beautiful. The semantic relations between the constituents in the examples in (433) remain something of a mystery, as does the overall structure of these sentences. We will return to examples of this kind in Section 8.5, where we provide arguments for assuming that the APs/PPs function as adverbial phrases.

The previous subsections have considered three cases that could contain non-predicative AP-complements. We have seen that the first two cases may be only apparent counterexamples to the claim that there are no non-predicative AP-complements. The most recalcitrant counterexample is the AP-complement of the verb wonento live/reside. For the moment, we will leave this problem to future research and simply conclude that APs normally cannot be used as non-predicative complements.