Optative

Optative is a grammatical mood used in some languages to express wishes, hopes, blessings, or prayers. It characteristically signals speaker-attested desire for a future or hypothetical situation, rather than stating a fact or describing reality. In certain languages, the optative is a distinct formal category with specific verb endings; in others, its function is carried by the subjunctive, a desiderative, or an irrealis construction. English typically conveys optative meaning with auxiliaries such as may or would that, rather than a dedicated mood.

Functions and usage include expressing wishes for the future (May you succeed), blessings or prayers (Let there be peace), and exhortations or hopes in hypothetical contexts (If only I were richer). The optative can appear in subordinate clauses to mark a wish about a future event, or in main clauses in literary or formal registers.

Cross-linguistic variation is common. Some languages preserve a robust optative system with its own endings and morphology, while others treat optative meaning as a subtype of the subjunctive or opt for modal particles to convey similar force. In Classical Greek, the optative is well documented and used to express wishes, potential outcomes, and counterfactuals in certain syntactic contexts. Sanskrit has forms associated with desiderative or optative functions that express wishes or voluntary actions. In many modern languages, direct optative marks are rare or limited to literary or ceremonial usage, with the function continued by other moods or by modality.

See also: Subjunctive mood, hortatory/subjunctive constructions, desiderative mood, irrealis.