The
hortative or
volitional expresses the speaker's or speakers' personal or collective volition ("I think I will do it", "we think we will do it"), or invitation to others ("let's do it"), to do something. The same form, otherwise known as the
tentative,
conjectural or
presumptive, expresses subjective speculation ("I think/presume that's the case") or supposition ("perhaps that's the case", "that could be the case"). The tentative meanings are increasingly outdated as later generations of speakers favor using
darō,
deshō, or
de gozaimashō as less ambiguous tentative markers (more in the subsection below).
Hortative: Conjugation table The so-called "hortative form" is actually a combination of the
mizenkei and the auxiliary , which underwent systemic historical sound changes that affected all the examples below. These sound changes motivated the term
godan ("five grade"), which replaced
yodan ("four grade") (see ). For non-
godan verbs, during the final stage as shown in the table below, the vowels of the original
mizenkei,
i,
e and
o, were reintroduced in some dialects, especially eastern ones, which yielded the suffix
‑yō, as in
iyō,
eyō and
koyō. Other dialects, especially western ones, did not undergo this development. Verbs with the vowel
i in their stems may retain the forms ending in
‑yū (←
‑iu) in some dialects, hence
okyu(u); or gained the normalized
‑yō in other dialects, hence
okiyo(o),
o(k)kyo(o). The distributions of forms where the original
mizenkei vowels were fused with
u (
okyū/okyō,
akyō,
nyō,
kō,
shō) and forms where the vowels were added back in (
okiyō,
akeyō,
neyō,
koyō,
shiyō/seyō) are uneven among western dialects, where
ichidan-based forms with fused vowels are less widespread; notably, in Kyoto and Osaka Prefectures, the former capitals with historically prestigious dialects, the fused forms
kō and
shō are used for the irregular verbs, while the forms with the original vowels are used for
ichidan verbs. For
‑masu and
desu, the unique shapes of
‑mashō and
deshō, as well as of the
negative ‑masen, suggest their provenance in western polite speech. While
‑masen undoubtedly has eastern counterparts,
‑mashinai/
‑mashinē (albeit uncommon, archaic and stereotypical), and do not seem to have any, in spite of such historical spellings as and , which appear to be pronounced *
‑mashiyō and *
deshiyō, but were rather variant spellings of and , and in some older publications these spellings were inconsistently interchangeable. In contrast,
suru,
‑masus conjugational relative, has both western and eastern forms, as in
sen/
shinai/
shinē, and
shō/
shiyō. Due to the said historical sound changes, all hortative/tentative forms contain the long vowel
ō, but it is susceptible to shortening into an
o in speech, especially in dialects. In
ichidan verbs, shortening results in the hortative/tentative and the imperative sharing the same
segments (consonants and vowels), although they can still be distinguished by
accent. All hortatives and tentatives are currently accentuated on the start of the
ō, as in , , , , etc. Thus the hortative
ichidan , are accentually distinct from the imperative
ichidan , . On the other hand, since all hortatives are accentuated on the
ō, ambiguity among themselves can arise, for example in and . The western hortative
kō ("let's come") also resembles the eastern
imperative kō ("come!"). The common form of the hortative/tentative ends in , but occasionally a
classical (thus more elevated) alternative ending in or turns up in modern writing, for example in . Both and derive from the earlier , but through different mechanisms: is from the loss of a consonant in , ; while is from the loss of a vowel, . Since also happens to represent the western
negative ‑n and the nominalizing particle
no, the spelling represents either or , and represents not only or but also the noun phrase , the last of which contains the
Sino-Japanese noun . Accentually, verbs whose dictionary forms are accentless can be distinguished, as in for "not go" and for "let's go"; but verbs whose dictionary forms are accented are ambiguous and context-dependent, as in () for both "not write" and "let's write." , , Adjectival tentatives such as with a built-in
arō can be replaced with . The eastern adjectival negative tentative
‑nakarō, as in , and are to be replaced with . The past tentative
‑ta/‑da darō/deshō are preferred to
‑tarō/‑darō,
deshita deshō to
deshitarō, and
‑mashita deshō to
‑mashitarō. However,
‑ta/‑da darō can be shortened back to ''‑ta/‑da 'rō
, albeit with different accent patterns; compare for ‑tarō
, and or for ‑ta darō
→ ‑ta 'rō
. This contraction is transferable to the polite ‑mashita 'rō
, which is still not quite the same as ‑mashitarō
, but which does suggest an unabbreviated form, ‑mashita darō
, with a mismatch in politeness, compared to the well-formed polite ‑mashita deshō
. doubted the plausibility of ‑mashita darō'', but it is not impossible. The western negative
‑n(u) and
‑zu take the
classical ‑ji for occasional elevated use, mostly followed by the quotative particle
to, as in , as well as in some cliches such as , , , etc. The negative tentative/hortative has been expressed with the
attributive followed by
mai; in the particular case of
‑masen, there is
‑masu mai. In many non-Tokyo eastern dialects,
mai (←
majii) is the negative counterpart of the affirmative
be(e) (←
bei), the regularly modernized adjectival form of
beki, which the Tokyo dialect does not use for tentative or hortative meanings.
‑N darō/jarō/de arō/deshō and
‑masen deshō are also used.
Hortative: Grammatical compatibility The hortative can be quoted with the
quotative particle
to, with in particular often being used to unambiguously convey volition (as opposed to invitation to act together), similarly to the
desirative with
‑tai/
‑tagaru; compare and . The extender conveys imminent realization of volition, even for actions by inanimate agents. The tentative can combine with
ga or
to (mo) to form the tentative concessive, with meanings similar to the
gerundive concessive
‑te mo, the
conditional concessive
‑edo and the
imperative concessive
ni shiro/seyo and
de are. The classical tentative is often followed by the particle
bakari ("almost"). == See also ==