The effects of electron–hole interaction in the dynamic structure factor (Formula presented.) and the complex dielectric function (Formula presented.) of valence electrons in lithium hydride at finite momentum transfer q are investigated by means of inelastic X-ray scattering (IXS) spectroscopy and ab initio theoretical methods. Calculations of (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) are conducted within time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) in adiabatic local density approximation (ALDA) and many-body perturbation theory (MBPT) based on the Bethe–Salpeter equation (BSE). The findings reveal that for low q an explicit treatment of electron–hole interactions using BSE formalism slightly modifies the low-energy structures in ...