Volitive modality (
abbreviated
An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening, contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened form of a word, usually ended with a trailing per ...
) 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, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to form ...
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 ...
,
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 o ...
and
imprecative moods.
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'', ''necessity'', ''possibility'' or ''advice''. Modal v ...
s ("''Wish'' that you were here!", "''May'' he live forever!").
Esperanto
Esperanto
Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...
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: and ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, ...
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)
See also
*
Volition (linguistics)
In linguistics, volition is a concept that distinguishes whether the subject, or agent of a particular sentence intended an action or not. Simply, it is the intentional or unintentional nature of an action.Tournadre, Nicolas. The Rhetorical Use ...
References
Grammatical moods
Linguistic modality
Semantics
Formal semantics (natural language)
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