The optative mood ( or ;
abbreviated
An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
) is a
grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used for signaling modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying (for example, a statement of ...
that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given
action
Action may refer to:
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video game
Film
* Action film, a genre of film
* ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford
* ''Action'' (1980 fil ...
. It is a
superset
In mathematics, set ''A'' is a subset of a set ''B'' if all elements of ''A'' are also elements of ''B''; ''B'' is then a superset of ''A''. It is possible for ''A'' and ''B'' to be equal; if they are unequal, then ''A'' is a proper subset of ...
of the
cohortative mood
In linguistics, hortative modalities (; abbreviated ) are verbal expressions used by the speaker to encourage or discourage an action. Different hortatives can be used to express greater or lesser intensity, or the speaker's attitude, for or a ...
and is closely related to the
subjunctive mood
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
but is distinct from the
desiderative mood
In linguistics, a desiderative (abbreviated or ) form is one that has the meaning of "wanting to X". Desiderative forms are often verbs, derived from a more basic verb through a process of morphological derivation. Desiderative mood is a kind of ...
.
English has no morphological optative, but various constructions impute an optative meaning. Examples of languages with a morphological optative mood are
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
,
Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
,
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
,
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
,
Friulian,
Kazakh,
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
,
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
,
Old Prussian
Old Prussian was a Western Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages, which was once spoken by the Old Prussians, the Baltic peoples of the Prussian region. The language is called Old Prussian to avoid con ...
,
Old Persian
Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...
,
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
,
Turkish, and
Yup'ik
The Yup'ik or Yupiaq (sg & pl) and Yupiit or Yupiat (pl), also Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Central Yup'ik, Alaskan Yup'ik ( own name ''Yup'ik'' sg ''Yupiik'' dual ''Yupiit'' pl; russian: Юпики центральной Аляски), are an I ...
.
English
Although English has no morphological optative, analogous constructions impute an optative meaning, including the use of certain
modal verbs
A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a ''likelihood'', ''ability'', ''permission'', ''request'', ''capacity'', ''suggestion'', ''order'', ''obligation'', or ''advice''. Modal verbs generally accompany the b ...
:
*''May you have a long life!''
*''Would that I were younger.''
Periphrastic constructions include ''if only'' together with a subjunctive complement:
*''If only I were rich!''
*''I would sing if only I weren't tone deaf.''
The optative mood can also be expressed
elliptically:
*''(May) God save the Queen!''
*''(May you) Have a nice day.''
*''(May) God bless America.''
The cohortative verb phrases let's (or let us) represent a syntactical mood as a subset of the optative mood:
*''Let's try it.''
*''Let us pray.''
Indo-European languages
Proto-Indo-European
The optative is one of the four original moods of
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
(the other three being the
indicative mood
A realis mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...
, the
subjunctive mood
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
, and the
imperative mood
The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that forms a command or request.
The imperative mood is used to demand or require that an action be performed. It is usually found only in the present tense, second person. To form the imperative mood, ...
). However, many Indo-European languages lost the inherited optative, either as a formal category, or functional, i.e. merged it with the subjunctive, or even replaced the subjunctive with optative.
Albanian
In
Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
, the optative (, lit. "wishing mood") expresses wishes, and is also used in curses and swearing.
* Wish: (May you reach/live 100 years)
* Curse: (May the devil take you)
Ancient Greek
In
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
, the optative is used to express wishes and
potentiality
In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his ''Physics'', ''Metaphysics'', '' Nicomachean Ethics'', and ''De Anima''.
Th ...
in
independent clause
An independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a ''simple sentence''. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself.
Independent clauses can be joined by using a semicolon or ...
s (but also has other functions, such as contrary-to-fact expressions in the present). In
dependent clause
A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as t ...
s (
purpose, temporal,
conditional, and
indirect speech
In linguistics, indirect speech (also reported speech or indirect discourse) is a grammatical mechanism for reporting the content of another utterance without directly quoting it. For example, the English sentence ''Jill said she was coming' ...
), the optative is often used under
past-tense main verbs. The optative expressing a wish is on its own or preceded by the particle εἴθε (). The optative expressing potentiality is always accompanied by the untranslatable particle ἄν in an independent clause and is on its own in a dependent clause.
In
Koine Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
, the optative began to be replaced by the
subjunctive
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
; in the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
, it was primarily used in set phrases.
Its endings are characterized by a diphthong such as (''oi'') in
thematic verbs and in athematic verbs.
Germanic languages
Some
Germanic verb forms often known as
subjunctive
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
s are actually descendants of the
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
optative. The
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
present subjunctive ''nimai'' "may he take!" may be compared to Ancient Greek present optative "may he bear!" That the old
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
optative is represented by the
subjunctive
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
is clear in Gothic, which lost the old, "true" Indo-European subjunctive that represented a fixed desire and intent. Its function was adopted by the present form of the optative that reflected only possibilities, unreal things and general wishes at first.
A Germanic innovation of form and functionality was the past tense of the optative, which reflected the
irrealis of past and future. This is shown by evidence in the
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct East Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the ''Codex Argenteus'', a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizeable text cor ...
,
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
,
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
, and
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
. This use of the (new) optative past tense as an irrealis mood started apparently after the Proto-Germanic past tense that had been once the
perfect tense
The perfect tense or aspect (abbreviated or ) is a verb form that indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration, often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself. ...
supplanted the Indo-German
aorist
Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the I ...
(compare Euler 2009:184).
A somewhat archaic
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
saying, 'Leve de Koning' ("long live the king") is another example of how the optative still is present in Germanic languages today.
Latin
Likewise in Latin, the newer subjunctive is based on the Indo-European optative. With this change in Latin, several old subjunctive forms became future forms. Accordingly, the prohibitive (negative desire and prohibition) was formed with the combination of *ne + verb form in the optative present.
Romanian
In
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
, the
conditional and optative moods have identical forms, thus being commonly referred to as the optative-conditional mood.
Sanskrit
In
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
, the optative is formed by adding the secondary endings to the verb stem. It sometimes expresses wishes, requests and commands: ''bhares'' "may you bear" (
active voice
Active voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages. A ...
) and ''bharethās'' "may you bear
or yourself (
middle). It also expresses possibilities (e.g. ''kadācid goṣabdena budhyeta'' "he might perhaps wake up due to the bellowing of cows") or doubt and uncertainty (e.g., ''katham vidyām Nalam'' "how would I be able to recognize Nala?"). The optative is sometimes used instead of a
conditional mood The conditional mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood used in conditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual.
It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the condit ...
.
Basque
Zuberoa
Soule ( Basque: Zuberoa; Zuberoan/ Soule Basque: Xiberoa or Xiberua; Occitan: ''Sola'') is a former viscounty and French province and part of the present-day Pyrénées-Atlantiques '' département''. It is divided into two cantons of the arr ...
n dialect has a special mood, called ''Botiboa'' (Votive), and unknown to the other dialects, used for making wishes. The auxiliary verb, whose characteristic is the prefix ''ai-'', always precedes the main verb and, in negative wishes, also the negative adverb ''ez'' (meaning ''no, not''):
* ''Ailü ikusi!'' ('If she/he had only seen it/him/her!').
* ''Ailü ez ikusi!'' ('If he/she hadn't only seen her/him/it!').
In
Standard Basque, like in all the other dialects, such wishes are made with the particle ''ahal'', and the future indicative tense:
* ''Arazoa ikusiko ahal du!'' ('I wish he/she saw the problem').
* ''Ez ahal du ikusiko!'' ('I hope she/he will not see her/him/it'): in negative wishes, the particle ''ahal'' goes between the negative adverb ''ez'' and the verbal auxiliary.
All the dialects have verbal forms in the imperative mood (''Agintera''), even for commands concerning the 3rd person, both singular and plural:
* ''Liburua ikus beza!'' ('May he/she see the book!').
* ''Liburuak ikus bitzate!'' ('May they see the books!').
For commands concerning the 1st person, present subjunctive forms are used:
* ''Liburua ikus dezadan!'' ('Let me see the book! —it is not asking any listener for permission to see that book, but a personal wish').
* ''Liburuak ikus ditzagun!'' ('Let's see the books!').
Finnish
In
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
, the optative or the second
imperative, is archaic, mainly appearing in
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
, and used in
suppletion with the first imperative. It is formed using the
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
es -''ko-'' and -''kö-'', depending on
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
, whereas the first imperative uses the suffixes -''ka-'' and -''kä-'', both cases subjected to
consonant gradation
Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation (mostly lenition but also assimilation) found in some Uralic languages, more specifically in the Finnic, Samic and Samoyedic branches. It originally arose as an allophonic alternation betw ...
; for instance, ''kävellös'' (thou shalt walk) is the active voice second person singular in present optative of the verb ''kävellä'' (to walk), and ''ällös kävele'' is the negative (don’t walk). (The corresponding first imperative forms are ''kävele'' and ''älä kävele''.)
Altogether there can be constructed 28 verb inflections in the optative, complete with active and passive voice, present and perfect, three person forms both in singular and plural and a formal plural form. Most, if not all, of these forms are, however, utterly rare and are not familiar to non-professionals. Only some expressions have remained in day-to-day speech; for instance, one can be heard to say ''ollos hyvä'' instead of ''ole hyvä'' ("you're welcome" or "here you go"). This form carries an exaggerated, jocular connotation.
Optative formality can be expressed with the 1st and the 2nd imperative. For example, the ninth Article of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...
begins with ''Älköön ketään pidätettäkö mielivaltaisesti'', "Not anyone shall be arrested arbitrarily", where ''älköön pidätettäkö'' "shall not be arrested" is the imperative of ''ei pidätetä'' "is not arrested". (Also, using the conditional mood ''-isi-'' in conjunction with the clitic ''-pa'' yields an optative meaning, e.g. ''olisinpa'' "if I only were". Here, it is evident that the wish is not, and probably will not be, fulfilled.)
Japanese
The Japanese optative is formed by using a conditional such as ''ba'' (-ば) or ''tara'' (-たら). For example, "I wish there were more time" is expressed literally as "If there were time, it would be good." (時間があれば良いのに ''Jikan ga areba ii noni.''), where ''aru'', the verb expressing existence, is in the ''ba'' conditional form ''areba''. ''Ii'' is the present tense of "good," but if expressed in the past tense ''yokatta'' よかった, the sentence expresses regret instead of a wish or hope. The above example would become "If there had been time, it would have been good" 時間があればよかったのに, as might be said of an opportunity missed because of a lack of time.
The optative mood can also be expressed by suffixing 様に ''yō ni'' to the verb, typically the polite form. For instance, "may you have a pleasant trip" 楽しい旅になります様に.
Mongolian
The Mongolian optative or "wishing form" (Хүсэх Хэлбэр) is used largely to "tell another person about a wish not connected to the listener".
[A Texbook of The Mongolian language, 2002:142, Ulaanbaatar, National University of Mongolia.] Colloquially, however, it can also be used for a wishful second person imperative. It is formed by joining the suffix -аасай/-ээсэй/-оосой to the root stem of the verb. e.g.
Үзэх= to see. үз—ээсэй.
It can also be used to form wishes in the past tense.
Sumerian
In
Sumerian, the optative of the 1st person is formed differently from the other persons:
Thereby, take note that the "normal" indicator of the 1st person in the
cohortative
In linguistics, hortative modalities (; abbreviated ) are verbal expressions used by the speaker to encourage or discourage an action. Different hortatives can be used to express greater or lesser intensity, or the speaker's attitude, for or a ...
(would be a
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
''-en'') is mostly omitted, as with the cohortative
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the Word stem, stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy'' ...
, the 1st person is already expressed. In the case of the precative, the personal indicator has to be used to differentiate between the 2nd and 3rd person.
Turkish
The optative in Turkish is part of the ''wish mood'' (''dilek kipi'') which reflects the command, desire, necessity, or wish. It has several semantic nuances. For instance, the word for "to come" (infinitive: ''gelmek'') is modified in the optative to ''geleyim''. This creates also a one-word sentence and means according to the
context
Context may refer to:
* Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary
Computing
* Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...
*''I may come.''
*''I come (sometime).''
*''I want to come (sometime).''
*''I should (sometime) come.''
Desire mood
Takes the -a or -e suffix.
:''geleyim, kalasınız''
:: may
come, may
oustay
Wish-conditional mood
It takes the -sa or -se suffix. The following example reflect a wish:
:''gelse, kalsanız''
::if
e/she/itwould come, if
ouwould stay
See also
*
Permissive mood
References
{{Grammatical moods
Grammatical moods