In dialogue, questions function as turn-taking triggers (Stivers et al., 2009). Question-response sequences form the backbone of spoken interaction (Ginzburg, 2012) (Schegloff, 2007). They carry a conversation forward and allow speech participants to coordinate their actions to achieve grounding (Clark & Brennan, 1991). However, both grounding theory and semantic theory are primarily concerned with two-way communication. Questions have received far less attention in monologic discourse, where the speaker cannot be assumed to necessarily ignore the answer (Farkas, 2022) and where no specific addressee is involved (Dynel, 2014). The aim of this talk is to demonstrate that questions build interactivity even in the absence of turn-taking, by initiating the grounding process. Our hypothesis is that the monologic discourse type has an impact on the use and function of questions by restricting evidence that the speaker’s message gets understood and by flouting the speaker’s ignorance principle. We will consider questions extracted from TED talks in English. TED talks feature speakers whose purpose is to share knowledge but also to self-brand (Rossette-Crake, 2022). This spoken monologic discourse type belongs to the “New Oratory” (Rossette-Crake, 2019) and is characterized by an asymmetrical speaker-audience relation. Importantly, this discourse type differs from academic discourse (Celle & Liégeois, 2021) and is promoted by technologically-mediated communication. All the questions from 18 TED talks were segmented, time-aligned with their transcriptions using ELAN and annotated for syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, discursive and gestural parameters. This paper focuses on the correlation between syntactic, pragmatic and discursive parameters that are relevant to interactivity. When questions are immediately answered by the speaker, a direct answer may convey different types of information. An answer from a knowledgeable speaker may provide new information to the audience. But an answer to a quoted question in an anecdote will rather invite the audience to relate to a life experience. The speaker’s role may vary. If the speaker anticipates on questions the audience might have, their purpose is to inform the audience. If, however, the speaker is the source of questioning, the function of the question is much more argumentative. In each case, questions are audience-oriented and interactive.