Section 32.3.3, sub I, has discussed idiomatic PPs like in z’n knollentuinvery happy (lit.: in his vegetable garden) in copular constructions such as (98a). Such PPs have no locational meaning, but generally refer to a mental state of the entity of which they are predicated. In this respect, they behave like the adjective tevredensatisfied in (98b), and this similarity goes beyond this superficial semantic correlation; such PPs also behave syntactically more like adjectives than like “regular” PPs. For example, like tevreden in (98b), the idiomatic PPs in (98a) can take a PP-complement, which is certainly not a common feature of regular PPs.

The idiomatic PPs in (98a) also behave like adjectives with respect to modification; cf. example (383) in Section 32.3.3, sub I, for a larger sample of modification possibilities. Example (99a) shows, for instance, that amplification by zeer/ergvery produces a perfect result. However, they differ from adjectives in that they can only be modified by amplifiers: downtoners such as vrij in (99b) are not possible. This may be because these idiomatic PPs by their nature express a relatively high degree.

The idiomatic PPs in (98a) also behave like adjectives in that they allow (periphrastic) comparative/superlative formation, as shown in (100). However, not all degrees of comparison lead to an equally felicitous result; the majorative and maximative degrees in (100a) are clearly better than the equative degree in (100b) and the minorative and minimative degrees in (100c). Perhaps, it is for the same reason that downtoners yield a marked result: insofar as the minorative degree is acceptable, it feels like an understatement, meaning “Jan is not happy with this book”.

Finally, observe that the modifiers modify the whole PP, which is clear from the fact, shown in (101a), that the PP-complement can occupy (at least marginally) the position between the modifier and the idiomatic PP. This is even clearer from the fact that stranded prepositions of PP-complements can intervene between the modifier and the idiomatic PP, as shown in (101b). In this respect these idiomatic PPs resemble the pseudo-participles discussed in Section A24.3.1, sub III.

The prepositions metwith and zonderwithout function as antonyms. The former can be characterized as existential in the sense that it implies the existence of its complement, while the latter can be characterized as its “negative” counterpart in the sense that it denies the existence of its complement. This means that, in a sense, met and zonder differ in the same way as the indefinite articles eena and ∅ and their negative counterpart geenno. Because the preposition met is existential, its nominal complement is compatible with a cardinal numeral: (102a) expresses that there are (two) exceptions. As the negative counterpart of existential met, the preposition zonder is not compatible with a cardinal numeral in its nominal complement: (102b) can express that there are no exceptions, but not that there are no two exceptions.

The examples in (103) show that the “negative” preposition zonder and the “negative” indefinite article geen are also similar in that they can both be modified by approximative modifiers like vrijwelvirtually and absolute modifiers like helemaalcompletely, which indicate whether the implied negation is absolute or not.