An indefinite NP is widely used as complementive in the copular and stative transitive construction. It encodes an attribute that is ascribed to another NP. The other NP is the subject of the copular construction, and the direct object of the stative resultative construction. The stative resultative represents two propositions in one clause: there is a particular attribute that is acribed to another NP, similar to the copular construction, but then there is also a syntactic subject of the clause who perceives the relationship between the attribute and its carrier. In the case of the indefinite complementive of the copular construction, the NP very often refers to a profession, as shown by example (3a) and (3b), but it can also ascribe some other general characterisation of the syntactic subject, as illustrated by (3c).

In the case of the stative transitive construction, the complementive NP typically denotes a general characterisation of the object of the clause, which has to be open to interpretation and therefore somewhat subjective, otherwise the process of perceiving such a relationship by the subject of the clause would be vacuous. There is often a degree of subjective evaluation implied by the construction, in which case even ostensibly neutral formulations are often interpreted as if they imply some kind of judgement, as illustrated by (4a), which cannot be taken to simply ascribe the male gender to the object, but rather the judgement that he is an exceptional exemplar of maleness.

A definite NP predicate in a copular construction usually serves to identify or define the subject of the clause, rather than ascribe an attribute to the subject. While losing the defining function, the inversion of subject and predicate is typically possible because of the identity that is implied between the two nominal constituents of the copular clause. These options are illustrated by the examples in (5).

In the stative transitive construction, definite NP complementives with verbs like noem to call also allow for a form of classification to be achieved, which may be subjective as is typical with the stative transitive, as in (6a), but may be intended as a declarative speech act, as in (6b) and (6c).

There is no possibility of inversion between object and complementive in the stative transitive construction corresponding to the inversion of definite predicates with the subject in the copular construction.