The discussion in the previous sections suggested that the category of picture nouns has two defining properties: (i) picture nouns denote a concrete object that is the result of a creative process and that depicts or represents some other object; (ii) both the agent and the theme can be expressed in the form of a van-PP. If this is indeed true, it means that not all depicting nouns are picture nouns, even if they have both a creator and a depicted object. An example of such a noun is plaatjepicture. The examples in (502) show that interpreting the PP van Rembrandt or the genitive noun phrase Rembrandts as an agent leads to a highly questionable result; each can only be interpreted as a possessor or, if the PP van de Westertoren in (502a) is omitted, as a theme.

Something similar seems to hold for nouns like posterposter or afficheposter, though the facts are less clear in this case: the examples in (503) show that expressing the agent and the theme simultaneously leads to a degraded result; but if the theme is omitted, the agent reading of the van-PP/genitive noun phrase is readily available.

The examples in (502) and (503) are quite different from those in (504), where the simultaneous expression of the agent and the theme is acceptable. We can therefore conclude from the definition given above that foto can be considered a picture noun, whereas plaatje and poster resemble relational nouns; cf. also Section 16.2.2.

The discussion in the previous sections suggested that the category of story nouns has two defining properties: (i) they denote an object that is the result of a creative process with abstract content; (ii) the agent can be expressed in the form of a van-PP, whereas the theme takes the form of an over-PP. If this is plausible, it means that not all nouns denoting created objects with abstract content are story nouns, even if they have both a creator and a subject matter. This can be seen by comparing the examples in (505). Example (505a) shows that the noun filmmovie has the two defining properties of story nouns: it refers to an object with abstract content, and the agent and theme can be expressed by a van and an over-PP, respectively. In this respect, the noun film is very different from the noun verfilmingfilm version: example (505b) shows that the theme argument of verfilming cannot take the form of an over-PP, and that the agent argument cannot take the form of a van-PP. In addition, (505b') shows that mentioning the agent is not sufficient for a proper reference: rather, it is the theme argument that is obligatory (unless the theme is implied, or the construction can be given a generic interpretation). On the basis of the definition given above, the conclusion must be that the noun verfilming is not a story noun, but a deverbal state-of-affairs noun; cf. Section 16.2.3.3 on ing-nominalizations.

The fact that the theme arguments of story nouns are introduced by the preposition over, whereas the theme arguments of picture nouns take the form of a van-PP, can sometimes lead to a reinterpretation of the head noun. Example (506), for example, is not a counterexample to the general rule that the theme of a picture noun is expressed by a van-PP, but what it does is force a story noun reading of the picture noun schilderijpainting; the noun phrase does not refer to an entity that merely depicts a certain theme, but to an entity that tells a story in doing so.