Old Javanese (OJ) grammar is not sufficiently investigated, the main bulk of information being the work of P.J. Zoetmulder 1950 (reprinted edition 1983) based on material from OJ epical prose of the 10th century. The further elaboration of OJ morphlogy and syntax is important for Austronesian comparative linguistics, the theory of linguistic typology as well as for a better understanding of OJ texts in prose and verse.

OJ has several synonymous and polysemous verbal and nominal forms denoting the hortative and various modalities, some of them also marking verbal arguments. These are nominal forms of verbals with the prefix pa(N)-, the imperative forms with the same prefix and other markers, the irrealis with the suffixes -a and -Çn and some hybrid forms.
The distinction of different meanings of these forms is due to syntactic and semantic contexts the properties of which are still to be described. The texts published so far and available in Leiden, the observations on grammar contained in such publications, the material of the dictionary by P.J. Zoetmulder and S. Robson (1982) make the basis of my research.