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Interrogative is a mood, a secondary category of the functional category of finiteness. Different kinds of interrogative structure are described in terms of the framework of Chapter 3. These include alternative questions, argument questions (wh- in English), re-opened questions, which question an answer or a question, proxy questions, allowing predicators to be questioned, and so-called ‘indirect questions’. The form of these is determined by the meaning of interrogative, so that they involve either a structure whose truth value is open or an argument or predicator that is open. A localist account of truth is offered and its place in relation to finiteness is described. ‘Indirect questions’, whose construction does not appear in main clauses, are regarded as demoted to non-finite. The role of phonology in the expression of interrogatives is described and emphasized. Notionally and lexically based interrogative representations involving argument sharing need not appeal to structural mutation or empty categories.

The assumption put forth in Chapter 10, namely that constituent questions of languages in which there is affinity between interrogative and indefinite proforms do not contain any interrogative proforms but only indefinite proforms, helps to resolve certain other puzzles, such as (i) the derivation of specific and non-specific indefinites by adding disjunctive and conjunctive particles respectively to interrogatives; (ii) the occurrence of ‘indirect questions’ that do not involve any question (request for information) as such in most instances; and (iii) the affinity between interrogative and relative proforms, occurring in some languages.

This chapter examines various constructions types and their relationship to finiteness. Certain constructions, such as ‘indirect questions’ and relatives, are demoted finites: the properties that they display that are associated with finiteness do not save them from being necessarily subordinate. Indicatives, however, can typically be finite in subordinate clauses. Some other constructions are dedicated mood-markers: this is often the case with optative, hortative, and exclamative constructions, which are frequently highly idiomatic. Other constructions still, though often, even typically, occurring as subordinates, may be promoted to serve as less prototypical expressions of declarative or of more marked moods: this is characteristic of the basic non-finite construction that is usually called infinitive. Subjunctives, associated notionally with irrealis, and even counterfactuality, show properties often associated with the expression of declaratives, but are frequently demoted. Descriptions are offered for this range of construction types and their varying relationship with finiteness.