Abstract This article empirically investigates the semantic meaning of ‘wh-exclamatives’ (e.g., What a view!). Previous literature has identified three distinct meaning components of wh-exclamatives: ±mirativity (speaker’s surprise), ±noteworthiness (degree of a referent’s characteristic), and ±valence (speaker’s strong positive or negative evaluation of the referent). In Study 1, participants (n = 50) rated the felicity of wh-exclamatives in contexts manipulated by these three meaning components. The findings indicate that ±noteworthiness and ±valence, but not ±mirativity, influence the felicitous use of wh-exclamatives. Study 2 (n = 80) examines the role of wh-exclamatives as linguistic valence setters, investigating how the construction interacts with the inherent valence of discourse referents (valence of a referent in isolation) to determine the overall valence of embedded referents in a valence rating study. The results reveal that wh-exclamatives have a polarity-conforming valence-strengthening function, enhancing the positivity of positive referents and the negativity of negative ones. Neutrally valenced referents are preferentially positivized, indicating a constructional positivity bias.