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:
“Evolution was in a strange mood when that creation came along.... It makes one wonder just where the plant world leaves off and the animal world begins.”
—John Colton (1886–1946)