Optative mood

The optative mood (abbreviated OPT) 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 with 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 an optative mood are Ancient Greek, Albanian, Armenian, Georgian, Kurdish, Navajo, Old Prussian, Sanskrit, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish.

Indo-European languages

Proto-Indo-European

The optative is one of the four original moods of Proto-Indo-European (the other three being the indicative mood, the subjunctive mood, and the imperative mood).  However, many Indo-European languages lost the optative, or renamed optative forms as subjunctive.

Albanian

In Albanian, the optative (mënyra dëshirore, lit. "wishing mood") expresses wishes, and is also used in curses and swearing.

• Wish: U bëfsh 100 vjeç! (May you reach/live 100 years)
• Curse: Të marrtë djalli! (May the devil take you)

Ancient Greek

In Ancient Greek, the optative is used to express wishes and potentiality in independent clauses. In dependent clauses (purpose, temporal, conditional, and indirect speech), 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 (eithe). 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.

• Εἴθε βάλλοις (Eíthe bállois) "If only you would throw."
• Χαίροιμι ἂν, εἰ πορεύοισθε (Chaíroimi àn, ei poreúoisthe) "I would be glad, if you could travel."

In Koine Greek, the optative began to be replaced by the subjunctive; in the New Testament, it was primarily used in set phrases.

Its endings are characterized by οι (oi) 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!"^[1] 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 proven by evidence in the Gothic language, Old High German, Old English, and Old Norse. This use of the (new) optative past tense as irrealis started apparently after the Proto-Germanic past tense that had been once the perfect tense supplanted the Indo-German aorist (compare Euler 2009:184).

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, 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" (active voice) and bharethās "may you bear [for yourself]" (middle). It also expresses possibilities (e.g. kadācid goṣabdena budhyeta "he might perhaps wake up due to the bellowing of cows")^[2] 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.

Finnish

In Finnish, the optative is archaic, mainly appearing in poetry. It is used as an "archaic" or "formal imperative", and it denotes a more subtle and polite request. It is formed using the suffixes -os and -ös, depending on vowel harmony; for instance, kävellös is the active voice second person singular in present optative of the verb kävellä (to walk). Altogether there are 28 verb inflections in the optative mood, 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.

The Finnish optative expresses formality. 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 optative 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." (時間があればいいのに 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 using ように youni after the polite form of a verb. 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" (Хүсэх Хэлбэр) is used largely to "tell another person about a wish not connected to the listener".^[3] 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."

Perhaps the most famous modern usage of the Mongolian optative is the chorus of the song "Tears that Flow in The Rain" (Бороонд Урсах Нулимас) (2006) by the Mongolian heavy metal band Fire.^[4]

Бороо чи ороосой Нулимас минь урсаасай Болзоо хожимдоосой Чи битгий ирээсэй

"Boroo chi oroosoi, Nulimas min' ursaasai Bolzoo khojimdoosoi Chi bitgii ireesei."

"If only you would fall, rain. If only my tears would flow. If only (you) would be late for our rendezvous. If only you wouldn't come."

Sumerian language

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 (would be a suffix -en) 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-must case (dilek-şart 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

• I may come.
• I come (sometime).
• I want to come (sometime).
• I should (sometime) come.

The four exising grammatical cases are.

Command case

It doesn't take a suffix. The radix of the verb is used instead. Examples are

gel, git, kal

come, go, stay

Desire case

Takes the -a or -e suffix.

geleyim, kalasınız

[I] should come, [you] should stay (no exact translation possible to English)

Necessity case

Takes the -malı or -meli suffix. Examples:

gelmeli, gitmeliyim, kalmalılar

[He/she/it] should come, [I] should go, [they] should stay

Wish-conditional case

It takes the -sa or -se suffix. The following example reflect a wish:

gelse, kalsanız

if [he/she/it] would come, if [you] would stay

See also

• Permissive mood

References