This article, based upon the Corpus d'Étude pour le Français Contemporain (CÉFC), aims at providing a mainly qualitative analysis of partial direct interrogatives present in the oral genre of commercial interactions, where goods are exchanged for money. A distinction is made between partial interrogatives occurring in non-transactional parts (such as greetings), on the one hand, and in transactional parts (such as requests for goods or payment), on the other hand. In particular, we highlight the specialisation of 'combien' in direct or (by metonymy) indirect quantification of the product, on a semantic level, as well as the strong presence of a verbless interrogative structure where a noun is followed by 'comment', on a syntactic level. This article thus contributes to a characterisation, on syntactic, semantic and interactional levels, of partial direct interrogatives, and, more generally, to further reflection on oral genres.