(By Nina Dobrushina and Johan van der Auwera): "In this chapter, the term optative will refer to an inflected verb form dedicated to the expression of the wish of the speaker... This usage of the label optative is rather uncontroversial ..., but other terms are also found in descriptive grammars. The speaker’s wish can be expressed by different grammatical means across languages, for instance, by the use of modal verbs, such as English may in (2), or by a Russian elliptical conditional in (3)..."