A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

§4.4 Interrogatives as adjunct 179

The range of functions is almost like that illustrated for declaratives in [5]. One dif­

ference from declaratives, however, is that prepositions are often optional; for

example, we could add o/ after question in [vi], and we could omit on in [viii].

There is only partial overlap between the items that license declaratives and those

that license interrogatives.

Know. for example, accepts both: 1 know she's right; 1 know what he did.

Insist accepts only declaratives: 1 insist that she's right; *1 insist what he did.

Inquire accepts only interrogatives: *1 inquire that he's ill; 1 inquired what he did.

We have also noted that very few prepositions license declaratives, but there are

more that accept interrogatives (like on in [viii]).

4.4 Interrogatives as adjunct

There is one construction where subordinate interrogatives appear in

adjunct function:

[12] CLOSED

ii OPEN

He 'l! complain, whether we meet during the week or at the week-end.

He 'l! complain, whatever you ask him to do.

It follows from [i] that he'll complain if we meet during the week, and he'll com­

plain if we meet at the week-end, and these two conditions exhaust the options.

So we know he'll complain.

Similarly in [ii], he'll complain if you ask him to peel the potatoes and he'll com­

plain if you ask him to set the table and so on: he'll complain for every possible

x where you ask him to do x, so again it follows that he'll complain.

We call this the exhaustive conditional construction. It uses an interrogative

clause to express a set of conditions that exhaustively cover the possibilities.

Why would this exhaustive conditional meaning be expressed by an interrogative

form? Because the interrogative expresses a question whose answers define an

exhaustive set of conditions.

For [i] the question is "Do we meet during the week or at the week-end?"; and

this has a closed set of answers (just two of them).

For [ii] it is "What do (or will) you ask him to do?", which has an open set of

answers.

Each possible answer represents a 'cas e', and the examples say that he will com­
plain no matter which of the possible cases turns out to be realised.
Note that the exhaustive element of meaning applies equally in an example like
He 'll complain, whether we meet on Satu rday or Sunday. Although there are other
days than these two, the sentence presupposes, or takes it for granted, that we will
meet on one or other of the two days mentioned, so in this context there are in fact
just these two possible 'cases'.