%0 Journal Article %A Stevens, Emmy %T Altijd leuk, zo’n ironische constructie! %D 2019 %J Nederlandse Taalkunde, %V 23 %N 3 %P 371-381 %@ 2352-1171 %R https://doi.org/10.5117/NEDTAA2018.3.006.STEV %K verbal irony, default ironic constructions, expressivity, collostructional analysis %I Amsterdam University Press, %X Abstract Some linguistic constructions can be considered default ironic construc­tions, as those combinations of words almost always trigger an ironic reading (Giora, Drucker & Fein 2014, Giora et al 2015). According to La Roi (2014), the Dutch altijd-X-construction can be considered such a default ironic construction. However, a corpus analysis reveals that most of the instances are not ironic. The assumption that the altijd-X-construction is ironic by default no longer holds. Nevertheless, the corpus analysis indeed shows that the combination of altijd with a positive evaluative word is significantly more interpreted as ironic than the usage of altijd or the positive evaluative words in isolation. %U https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/NEDTAA2018.3.006.STEV