The optative mood is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood. In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood (or mode), which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... The cohortative mood (also known as Intentional; cohortative subjunctive is also synonymous with hortatory subjunctive) is a grammatical mood, used to express plea, insistence, imploring, self-encouragement, wish, desire, intent, command, purpose or consequence. ... In grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a verb mood that exists in many languages. ...

Greek (Ancient and to some extent Koine^[1]), Albanian, Georgian, Old Prussian, Sanskrit, and Turkish are examples of languages with an optative mood. Note: This article contains special characters. ... Koine redirects here. ... Old Prussian is an extinct Baltic language spoken by the inhabitants of the area that later became East Prussia (now in north-eastern Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia) prior to German colonization of the area beginning in the 13th century. ... Sanskrit ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ...

In English, the optative is expressed by the use of a modal verb (e.g. that you might find what you're looking for). A modal verb (also modal, modal auxiliary verb, modal auxiliary) is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality. ...

Optative in Ancient Greek

In classical Greek, including the Attic dialect in which Plato wrote, the optative mood is used for a variety of purposes ^[2], such as:

1. Potential Optative, in which the possibility of an action taking place is indicated. "I would be happy to dine with you."

2. Optative of Wish, which, as the name indicates, is used to express wishes such as those beginning, "If only..." or "Would that...".

3. Conditional Sentences, employing a main clause, or "apodosis," and a subordinate clause, or "protasis". In these sentences the optative mood is used in particular to convey Future Less Vivid and Past General conditionals.

4. "Secondary Sequence". The optative mood also frequently substitutes for a verb in the indicative or subjunctive moods within a subordinate clause when that clause is governed by a secondary tense verb such as the imperfect or the aorist.

Over time, as the Koine (common) form of Greek emerged following the conquests of Alexander the Great c. 333 BCE, the use of the optative began to fall away among many Greek writers. In the New Testament, written in Koine Greek, the optative is primarily used in certain fixed expressions like me genoito, "may it not be!" (e.g. Romans 7:7).^[3]

Note on forms: Gordon M. Messing attests that in dealing with the endings of the optative mood, Herbert Weir Smyth merely noted without comment that the first person singular ending except after -ιη- was -μι, despite his previous statement that the optative usually has the endings of the secondary tenses of the indicative. The anomaly of the usual ending -μι has now been resolved with the discovery of Arcadian present optative first singular έξελαύνοια, which shows the original secondary active ending previously assumed but hitherto unattested. Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... This article discusses Arcadia, a region of Greece. ...

Optative in Finnish

In Finnish, the optative is archaic, mainly appearing in poetry. It is used like the 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 tense, 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, joculiar connotation. This article is about the art form. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... Look up Suffix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ...

References

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