begärsform

Begärsform is a historical grammatical mood used to express a wish, desire, or desiderative content in verb constructions. The term comes from the Swedish verb begära, “to desire,” and is discussed in older and descriptive grammars as a distinct mood apart from the indicative, imperative, and conjunctive. In Nordic linguistic traditions, begärsformen is associated with expressing that the speaker wishes or desires an action to occur, rather than stating it as a fact or commanding it.

Historically, begärsform appears in older Swedish and other North Germanic texts, where specific endings or constructions signaled the speaker’s wish about a future or hypothetical event. The mood is usually characterized as foregrounding the speaker’s attitude of longing or desire rather than asserting real-world truth. Over time, as Swedish and neighboring languages shifted toward more uniform mood systems, the begärsform largely faded from everyday usage and is now mainly treated as a topic in historical or philological studies.

In modern Swedish, the functional equivalent of wishing or desiderative meaning is typically conveyed through periphrastic constructions, modal verbs, or fixed expressions, rather than a living, productive begärsform. The term is therefore most relevant in discussions of historical grammar, older texts, and cross-linguistic comparisons of desiderative moods. In comparative work, begärsform is sometimes equated with optativ or desiderativ concepts found in other languages, though exact realizations vary by period and language. See also konjunktiv, optativ, desiderativ.