imperatives and hortatives both involve the expression of a wish of the speaker about a future state of affairs. in that respect, they are like optatives, but in contrast to optatives, they convey an appeal to the addressee(s) to help make the future state of affairs true. if the person in control of the desired state of affairs is the addressee(s), the utterance is an imperative. in any other case, it is a hortative. consider the following examples: