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I'm from India where English is not a native language. Generally here we use constructions like "Should you work hard?" and "Had I done it?" in interrogative sense.

But now I find that they are also used in subjunctive conditionals. For example:

"Should you work hard, you will pass."

"Had I done it, I would not have repented."

Now my question is why interrogative form of construction like "Should you work hard" is used instead of "If u worked hard"??

2 Answers 2

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You probably assume that "should you work hard" is a question because the subject you and the auxiliary verb should are inverted. There are a few other situations where inversion can take place, and this is one of them.

should has several meanings, and one of them is used to express the possibility of a future event: see the POSSIBILITY meaning in the Cambridge Dictionary. This meaning is very formal, and you are unlikely to hear it in everyday speech. It can be used in two ways:

If you should need any help....
Should you need any help...

Note that, in the form without if, the subject and auxiliary verb are inverted, but this does not make it a question.

The difference between "should you work hard" and "If you worked hard" is that the should version is talking about hypothetical future hard work, and the if version is talking about hypothetical current hard work or actual past hard work.

The same applies for your had sentence: see the final example in the HAVE meaning in the Cambridge Dictionary.

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why interrogative form of construction like "Should you work hard" is used instead of "If u worked hard"?

Your two examples are not equivalent, because Should you work hard? is a complete interrogatory statement, and If you worked hard [...] is incomplete since it lacks the requisite conditional result. This leads us to the answer to your question.

The form Should you work hard? is used in order to avoid the necessity of stating the conditional purpose. When if is used to introduce a question, the conditional purpose must be included in order to employ standard English usage. For example, If you worked hard, then would your family have food?

The word should may be used to introduce a question because, as you have said, it can "express condition" (Merriam-Webster, definition 1). When you use it to form a question, as in Should you work hard? the usage implies a purpose Should you work hard [if your family is to have food]? (This also uses Merriam-Webster's should definition 2: "to express obligation".)

The word if can introduce a question, when it explicitly states the purpose that a "should" interrogatory merely implies. To repeat the previous example: If you worked hard, then would your family have food? This is because if can mean "on [the] condition that" (Merriam-Webster, definition 1d), and thus it can also be a conditional, just as should. Usually, the structure is an if...then (interrogatory) statement

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