The dative alternation sometimes also occurs with van-PPs. This is especially true for verbs with the verbal particle af. Some examples are afbietsen (van)to wheedle out of, afnemen (van)to take away (from), afpakken (van)to take away (from), afpersen (van)to extort (from), and aftroggelen (van)to wheedle out of. There are also one or two cases with the particle terugback: terugvragen (van)to ask back (from) and perhaps terugeisen (van)to reclaim.

Constructions of this type are again directional in nature: the referent of the direct object is said to traverse a path that starts at the referent of the indirect object, which thus functions as a source. Examples such as (375a) are therefore similar to constructions such as (376), in which the PP van de pan (af) functions as a complementive.

The fact that van-PPs can also be used as complementives is not surprising, given the analysis of the dative alternation proposed in Section 3.3.1.2, sub III. However, it seems a bit more difficult to show conclusively that van-PPs in examples such as (375a) actually function as complementives: the fact that the verb afpakken normally takes the particle af makes it impossible to empirically support this appeal to the lack of extraposition, since such particles usually lift the ban on extraposition of prepositional complementives. This means that we cannot appeal to word order.

The fact that the element af (or the particle terugback) is obligatory in the corresponding double object constructions should probably be accounted for in a similar way as the obligatoriness of toe in the goal constructions; cf. Section 3.3.1.2, sub III, for discussion.

The examples in (378) show that dative phrases that function as sources can sometimes also alternate with aan-PPs. This holds especially for verbs prefixed with ont- like ontnemen (aan)to take away from, ontstelen (aan)to steal from, ontfutselen (aan)to swindle someone out of and ontzeggen (aan)to refuse.