The absolute zonder-construction seems to be more limited than the absolute met-construction: it seems to be possible only with locational adpositional phrases and intransitive prepositions. We have placed the construction in sentence-initial position (i.e. before the finite verb in second position) in order to show that the construction functions as a clausal constituent.

Directional adpositional phrases like (134a), and predicates of other categories do not seem to be possible. Given examples such as without the chairman present, we cannot start the meeting, English seems to be more permissive in this respect.

A potential problem for the claim that predicative als-phrases like als voorzitter in (134c) cannot be used as the predicative part of the absolute zonder-construction is that Haeseryn (1997: 929) gives example (135a) as grammatical. However, it is not entirely clear whether this is really an absolute zonder-construction, because example (136a) below indicates that proper nouns do not give rise to fully acceptable results in this construction. Perhaps, the als-phrase must be seen as a modifier of the proper noun. That this is a possibility is shown in (135b). Since we have no further insights to offer, we leave the analysis of this example to future research.

Not only is there a restriction on the type of predicate, there also seems to be a restriction on the nominal part of the construction, with judgments varying from person to person. For at least some speakers, the examples in (136a-d) with proper nouns, referential personal pronouns, definite noun phrases, and interrogative phrases all seem to produce a marked result; to a lesser extent, the same thing seems to hold for universally quantified noun phrases, as in (136e).

Demonstrative and indefinite noun phrases, on the other hand, are fully acceptable, as shown in (137a-b). Surprisingly, absolute zonder-constructions differ from absolute met-constructions in that they allow, and indeed typically occur, with bare singular noun phrases (i.e. without a determiner) as their nominal part; compare (137c) with (101g).

Finally, it should be noted that zonder licenses negative polarity items like ook maar (iets)any(thing) or een centa single penny. This is illustrated in (138).