Three types of referential partitive nouns can be distinguished, namely i) container nouns, ii) part nouns and iii) collective nouns:

Container nouns refer to objects which integrate other objects, referred to by the content noun, into a large whole. An example of a partitive construction with a container noun (pakkie packet) is given below:

The first example below shows that the container noun (such as pakkie packet) may be modified by attributive adjectives (such as groot big). Container nouns allow the content noun to be realised in an Adpositional Phrase (PP) introduced by the preposition met with:

Container nouns also allow the content noun to be preceded by the functional element vol full, that is related to the homophonous adjective (for ease of reference, the functional element vol full will be referred to as an adjective):

Container nouns allow the noun of descriptive content to be preceded by the combination of adjective and preposition vol met full with and vol van full of:

There are many examples in which the container noun must be joined to the content noun by means of an overt element like vol full or met with, and in which a bare partitive construction is excluded. An example is the minimal pair below:

Part nouns divide substances, referred to by the content noun, into smaller wholes. Four examples of referential partitive constructions with part nouns are given below:

Part nouns cannot enter the partitive construction with met with in the reading that the part fully consists of whatever is the denotation of the substance noun.

A phrase such as the example above is only grammatical if it means that the bar consists of a substance that is different from chocolate, though having chocolate as supplementary substance. The same holds in case the part noun is joined to the substance noun by the adjective vol full, as in the example below:

This phrase is ungrammatical in the reading that the bar fully consists of chocolate. It is only grammatical if the bar consists of a substance that is different from chocolate while having chocolate as a second substance, but it is distributed over or within the first substance. Therefore, the following example is grammatical, on the reading that the bar consists of some substance (which is likely to be chocolate) which is filled with something else, namely nuts:

The same holds in case the part noun is joined to the substance noun by the phrase vol met full with:

Collective nouns like container nouns organise individual elements in a larger whole. Collective nouns, unlike container nouns, do not require an object for integration into a larger whole. This integration in a larger whole is the result of a natural process.

Prototypical collective nouns are the noun versameling collection and the noun groep group:

These two nouns can be joined by van of:

Many collective nouns refer to specific living beings, such as the noun swerm swarm, that can refer to a group of flying insects or birds, or trop herd that can only refer to a group of animals walking on land.

Such nouns are not attested with a linking preposition in case the construction is unexpanded: