Talk:Jussive mood

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Let's get some real examples

Is there any language which marks JUS directly? It seems to be a minor part of the language in the examples given for both Latin and Korean. True (talk) 02:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

• This article should state immediately and clearly whether the jussive exists in English. It'd be good to mention more than two other languages which have it as well. Malick78 (talk) 17:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
  • "May he rest in peace", "let them eat cake", "may you go forth and sin no longer" -- are these English jussive? I find conflicting references on the internet, but the more I read about the subject, the more I am convinced that these are authentic jussive statements, despite all the claims that it is untranslatable in English. If I am right, the word "may" really really really needs to be mentioned in this article (it is currently incomprehensible to an English monoglot). If I am wrong, I would like someone to explain to me precisely what aspect or feeling of these sentences differs from the true jussive. 2605:6000:FFC0:7D:10CF:A5EA:B9A:86E7 (talk) 23:18, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

• "Is there any language that marks JUS directly?" Arabic marks jussive directly (at least in formal and literary Arabic) with المضارع المجزوم (almuDari`a almajzum). Being only an Arabic student I leave this to some good willing native speaker. Astabada (talk) 23:09, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

• I believe Hebrew has a jussive mood, akin to Arabic. 70.51.88.25 (talk) 13:14, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Korean example

The source is a thesis about Korean imperative, exhortative and promissive being subcategories of the jussive. This would be a good example of an exhortative, but not of a jussive in my opinion. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 12:41, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. This example is misleading as to what JUS is supposed to do.

Eliot

I've added a fact template to

...the first English line of T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: "Let us go then, you and I" would be better grammatically as, "Let's go then..."

It's not obviously true, and it's currently not justified in any way. Really it needs a reference to a grammatical textbook (or removal, if untrue - which I suspect). 84.127.238.182 (talk) 09:43, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I removed the entire section as unsourced as dubious. I know of no references suggesting that English has the jussive mood. Cnilep (talk) 12:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

German Example

What about the iussive usage of the subjunctive mood in German? Similar to Latin, it is not a form in its own right, but merely one application of the present subjunctive (Konjunktiv I). It sounds dated and is uncommon in everyday speech, but it has survived in certain fixed phrases, in religious language, and also, to some extent, in cooking recipes (using the impersonal pronoun „man“):

• „Er lebe hoch!“ – alternatively with a modal verb: „Hoch soll er leben!“
• „Der Herr lasse sein Angesicht über uns leuchten und sei uns gnädig.“
• „Man nehme sechs Eier und verrühre sie mit 200 ml Milch.“ – alternatively with an infinitive: „Sechs Eier mit 200 ml Milch verrühren.“

Is this worth adding? --91.67.60.235 (talk) 23:46, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I added some German examples. Actually, I did some research within different corpora and came to the conclusion that Jussive is not uncommon in contemporary German (but certainly not very common)

By the way, I'd say that "Er lebe hoch" is Optative Mood and not Jussive. For he cannot "lebe hoch" by himself, others just whish that he will "lebe hoch" Marasek (talk) 23:42, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

For the example "Komme Er her" I have taken the liberty to delete the assessment "Even worse, it would not be seen as being courteous, but as being extremely arrogant." It is not backed by a source and as a native German speaker I can safely say that it will just sound funny and outdated. Strasburger (talk) 09:09, 11 July 2015 (UTC)