[Lingtyp] optative sentences

[Nigel Vincent]

Dear Christian,
An example of the second type is the English expression 'I wish!', which has become very common in recent years as a response to a desirable but counterfactual situation, e.g.

  *
Will you be on holiday next week?
  *
I wish!

And compare Italian magari.
Best
Nigel



Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
The University of Manchester

Linguistics & English Language
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
The University of Manchester



https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html
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From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Sent: 25 August 2024 12:14 PM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: [Lingtyp] optative sentences

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
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