The referential partitive construction features two nouns: a concrete or referential noun designating a relative measure and a content noun. The example below features a bare partitive, that is, the two nouns are stringed together without an intervening preposition. The first noun doazebox is the concrete referential measure noun and the second noun flikkenchocolate drops is the content noun:

The noun doazebox preserves its concrete referential meaning: an object in which something can be contained.

Three types of concrete nouns may be distinguished, depending on their meaning. The type of concrete noun correlates with the presence or absence of functional elements, such as prepositions, joining it to the content noun. Concrete partitive nouns can be modified by various elements, and they determine the number of the construction as a whole. The content noun in the concrete partitive construction has limited possibilities for modification, and it does not determine the number of the construction as a whole. Some nouns behave syntactically as concrete partitives while their meaning seems to be extensionally equivalent to that of quantified partitives as a result of their metaphorical interpretation.