Optative forms *

The optative (also referred to as subjunctive by some) plays a dominant role in day-to-day conversations and expresses desirability. There are forms for all six grammatical persons. For the first-person singular and plural there are affirmative forms and negative forms, and in combination with the question particle, the sum total is four forms per grammatical person. Typically, such declarative forms are used to state something that is judged as desirable by the speaker, but the questioned forms clearly serve as a proposal with an invitation to comment on it. For the second person (singular and plural) there are only affirmative and negated forms, but question forms are nonexistent. Although there is also an optative suffix for the third-person singular, its usage is limited mainly to adverbial doublets.