Optativ

The optative is a grammatical mood used in some languages to express wishes, prayers, blessings, or hopes about future or hypothetical events. It is distinct from the indicative, which states facts, and from the imperative, which issues commands. In many languages the optative marks a speaker’s desire that something happen rather than asserting that it will occur.

Functions and usage can include expressing blessings or favorable wishes, hopes for the future, or polite or hopeful statements. It may appear in main clauses or in subordinate clauses after verbs of wishing, hoping, or fearing. In some languages, the optative also communicates potential or uncertain events, or functions similarly to a soft wish or prayer. It is often contrasted with the subjunctive, though in some grammars the line between these moods can blur.

Historically, the optative is best known from Ancient Greek and Sanskrit, where it occupies a prominent role in the verb system. In Greek, it is used to express wishes and possibilities and has specific morphological forms; in Sanskrit it serves a similar role for wishes and prayers. Typological studies note that several language families have or had optative-like forms, though contemporary languages differ in how they realize or replace this mood. In many modern languages, the functions of an optative are subsumed by other devices such as subjunctive endings, modal verbs, or fixed expressions.

The term optative derives from a desire-related sense, and in linguistic description it designates this class of wishes and hopes rather than a single universal inflection.