[Lingtyp] optative sentences

[Christian Lehmann]

Dear colleagues,

since my master’s thesis (admittedly, a couple years ago), I have been 
struggling with the manifestation of volition in grammar. Please 
consider the following contrast:

There is one type of utterances which communicate to the hearer that the 
speaker _wants_ P. Like a command, they appeal to him to see to it that 
P be realized. This is explicit in (1a).

(1)(a) Please shut the window!

     (b) The window should be shut.

In this sense, (1b) is an indirect speech act, but the type of volition 
conveyed is the same. One might say that (1)(a) and (b) share their 
illocutionary force.


There is another type of utterances which express that the speaker 
_wishes_ P. They are exclamations which do not appeal to anybody for 
fulfillment of P:

(2)(a) If only Linda arrived in time!

     (b) The devil take him!

Sentences of type #2 are introduced by /utinam/ in Latin, /ojalá/ in 
Spanish, and so forth. Such particles are not used in sentences of type #1.


Also, unfulfillable wishes (traditionally: irreal optative sentences) 
are fine and common as type #2, but in type #1 produce utterances hard 
to interpret.


Here are my questions to you:

  *

    Is there an established conceptual and terminological distinction
    between these two types? How about (1) volitive and (2) optative?

  *

    Does type #2 have an illocutionary force? Do exclamations have an
    illocutionary force?

-- 

Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
99092 Erfurt
Deutschland

Tel.: 	+49/361/2113417
E-Post: 	christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
Web: 	https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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