Volitive modality (abbreviatedVOL) is alinguistic modality that indicates the desires, wishes or fears of the speaker. It is classified as a subcategory ofdeontic modality.[1]
Volitive moods are a category ofgrammatical moods that are used to express volitive modality. Examples are theoptative,desiderative andimprecative moods.[1]However, many languages (like English) have other ways to express volitive modality, for examplemodal verbs ("Wish that you were here!", "May he live forever!").
Esperanto has a volitive verb form that is formed by adding a-u to the verb stem and used to indicate that an action or state is desired, requested, ordered, or aimed for.[2]The verb form is formally called volitive,[3][4] but in practice, it can be seen as a broaderdeontic form, rather than a pure volitive form, since it is also used to express orders and commands besides wishes and desires.
Examples:
U-formo montras, ke la ago aŭ stato ne estas reala, sed dezirata, volata, ordonata aŭ celata.[a U form shows that the action or state is not real, but desired, wanted, ordered, or aimed for.]
