Volitive modality (

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

linguistic modality In linguistics and philosophy, modality refers to the ways language can express various relationships to reality or truth. For instance, a modal expression may convey that something is likely, desirable, or permissible. Quintessential modal ex ...

that indicates the desires, wishes or fears of the speaker. It is classified as a subcategory of

deontic modality Deontic modality (abbreviated ) is a linguistic modality that indicates how the world ought to be according to certain norms, expectations, speaker desires, etc. In other words, a deontic expression indicates that the state of the world (where 'worl ...

Realisation in speech

Volitive moods are a category of

grammatical moods 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 are used to express volitive modality. Examples are the

optative The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mo ...

desiderative 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 ...

and

imprecative mood Some languages distinguish between the optative mood and an imprecative mood (abbreviated ). In these languages, the imprecative mood is used to wish misfortune upon others, whereas the optative mood is used for wishes in general. In such a langua ...

s. However, many languages (like English) have other ways to express volitive modality, for example

modal verb 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 ...

s ("''Wish'' that you were here!", "''May'' he live forever!").

Esperanto

Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...

has a volitive verb form that is formed by adding a to the verb stem and used to indicate that an action or state is desired, requested, ordered, or aimed for. The verb form is formally called volitive, but in practice, it can be seen as a broader

deontic In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek language, Greek: + ) is the normative ethics, normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a s ...

form, rather than a pure volitive form, since it is also used to express orders and commands besides wishes and desires. Examples: * ― "Come." (a request or command) * ― "Give it to me." (a request or command) * ― "Let's do that." (a desire or aim) * ― "I ought to go to sleep." (expresses the desirability of the action) * ― "May your child be successful in life." (a wish or desire) * ― "I want you to help me." (a desire) * ― "She asks that I be silent." (a request)

References

Grammatical moods Linguistic modality Semantics Formal semantics (natural language) {{grammar-stub

Realisation in speech

Esperanto

See also

References