Optative mood
The optative mood is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and is closely related to the subjunctive mood.
English has no morphological optative, but there are various constructions which impute an optative meaning. One uses the modal verb may, e.g. May you have a long life! Another uses the phrase if only with a verb in the past or past subjunctive, e.g. If only I were rich! Another uses the present subjunctive, e.g. God save the Queen!
Examples of languages with a morphological optative mood are Ancient Greek, Albanian, Armenian, Georgian, Friulian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Navajo, Old Prussian, Old Persian, Sanskrit, Turkish, and Yup'ik.
Indo-European languages
Proto-Indo-European
The optative is one of the four original moods of Proto-Indo-European. 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, the optative expresses wishes, and is also used in curses and swearing.- Wish: U bëfsh 100 vjeç!
- Curse: Të marrtë djalli!
Ancient Greek
- Εἴθε βάλλοις "If only you would throw."
- Χαίροιμι ἄν, εἰ πορεύοισθε "I would be glad, if you could travel."
Its endings are characterized by οι in thematic verbs and ι in athematic verbs.
Germanic languages
Some Germanic verb forms often known as subjunctives are actually descendants of the Proto-Indo-European optative. The Gothic present subjunctive nimai "may he take!" may be compared to Ancient Greek present optative φέροι "may he bear!" That the old Indo-European optative is represented by the subjunctive 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, Old High German, Old English, and Old Norse. This use of the optative past tense as an irrealis mood started apparently after the Proto-Germanic past tense that had been once the perfect tense supplanted the Indo-German aorist.
A somewhat archaic Dutch saying, 'Leve de Koning' 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 was formed with the combination of *ne + verb form in the optative present.Romanian
In Romanian, the conditional and optative moods have identical forms, thus being commonly referred to as the optative-conditional mood.Sanskrit
In Sanskrit, the optative is formed by adding the secondary endings to the verb stem. It sometimes expresses wishes, requests and commands: bhares "may you bear" and bharethās "may you bear ". It also expresses possibilities or doubt and uncertainty. The optative is sometimes used instead of a conditional mood.Finnish
In Finnish, the optative or the second imperative, is archaic, mainly appearing in poetry, and used in suppletion with the first imperative. It is formed using the suffixes -ko- and -kö-, depending on vowel harmony, whereas the first imperative uses the suffixes -ka- and -kä-, both cases subjected to consonant gradation; for instance, kävellös is the active voice second person singular in present optative of the verb kävellä, and ällös kävele is the negative.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. 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 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".
Japanese
The Japanese optative is formed by using a conditional such as ba or tara. For example, "I wish there were more time" is expressed literally as "If there were time, it would be good.", 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 ように you 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ように.
Mongolian
The Mongolian optative or "wishing form" is used largely to "tell another person about a wish not connected to the listener". 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.
Миний дүнг ээж үзээсэй
Minii düng eej üzeesei.
"If only mum could see my results."
It can also be used to form wishes in the past tense.
Чи ирсэн баиж ч болоосой
Chi irsen baij ch boloosoi.
"If only you had come."
Sumerian
In Sumerian, the optative of the 1st person is formed differently from the other persons:| Person | Designation | Example | Translation |
| 1. | Cohortative/hortative | ga-na-b-dug | I want to say it to him/her |
| 2./3. | Precative | ḫe-mu-ù-zu | You should experience it |
Thereby, take note that the "normal" indicator of the 1st person in the cohortative is mostly omitted, as with the cohortative prefix, 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 which reflects the command, desire, necessity, or wish. It has several semantic nuances. For instance, the word for "to come" is modified in the optative to geleyim. This creates also a one-word sentence and means according to the context- I may come.
- I come.
- I want to come.
- I should come.
Desire mood