The optative mood (abbreviated OPT) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood.
Ancient Greek, Albanian, Armenian, Georgian, Kurdish, Navajo, Old Prussian, Sanskrit, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish are examples of languages with an optative 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!
In Romanian, the conditional and optative moods have identical forms, thus being commonly referred to as the optative-conditional mood.
Read more about Optative Mood: Finnish, Japanese, Mongolian, Sumerian Language, Turkish
Famous quotes containing the word mood:
“Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)