Subjunctive (1st Person Singular)
Are these correct?
I’m sorry for arriving late / I’m sorry that I arrived late: 1. Siento haber llegado tarde. 2. Siento por llegar tarde. 3. Lo siento que he llegado (llegué) tarde. (Present Sunjunctive not allowed here) (Can Number 3 above be expressed without ‘lo’?) I hope I didn’t bother anyone: • Espero no haber molestado a nadie. • Espero que no he molestado (molesté) a nadie. (Imperfect Sunjunctive not allowed here) Many thanks. |
1. Siento haber llegado tarde.:good:
2. Siento por llegar tarde.:bad: (In any case, "lo siento por llegar tarde", but that's it's an ugly sentence.) 3. Lo siento que he llegado (llegué) tarde. (Present Sunjunctive not allowed here) :bad: (We don't make this kind of construction. You can separate both parts: "He llegado tarde. Lo siento/lamento". If you don't invert them, you're rather explaining more than apologizing.) If you don't use "lo", you get a sentence like: "siento que haya llegado tarde". In that case, it's someone else who arrived late, not you. When you have the same subject for both verbs, then the infinitive is necessary. - Lamento haber llegado tarde. (I arrived late) - Lamento que yo haya llegado tarde. (Clumsy and inelegant; not only could you have used a shorter sentence like the first one, but you also had to add your pronoun to avoid an ambiguity.) - Lamento que haya llegado tarde. (That's a third person who was late and I'm the one who's sorry.) I hope I didn’t bother anyone: • Espero no haber molestado a nadie.:good: • Espero que no haya molestado I'll be curious: Why do you say the subjunctive is not allowed in your sentences? :thinking: |
Thank you so much for your explanations. They are excellent.
I was always under the impression that neither the Present nor Imperfect Subjunctives could be used at all with the 1st Person Singular. In each of my examples below, I have changed ‘lo siento que’ for ‘esperar que’. I don’t (or didn't) want to win the race. I want (or wanted) my brother to win instead. Scenario 1: I hope that I don’t run fast tomorrow: • Espero no correr rápidamente mañana (commonly used and grammatically correct). • Espero que yo no corra rápidamente mañana (clumsy, but more importantly, grammatically incorrect). Scenario 2: I hoped that I didn't (or wouldn’t) run fast: The race was last Sunday. I want to describe how I felt on Saturday night before the race. • Esperaba no correr rápidamente (commonly used and grammatically correct). • Esperaba que yo corriera rápidamente. (clumsy, but more importantly, grammatically incorrect). Scenario 3: I hope that I didn't run fast: The race was last Sunday. I don’t know how I performed as I haven’t watched the recording. This time, I want to describe how I am feeling right now about something that happened in the past. • Espero que no haya corrido rápidamente (I always thought this was grammatically incorrect?) • Espero que no he corrido rápidamente (I always thought this was grammatically correct?) • Espero que yo corriera rápidamente (grammatically incorrect). |
Oh right. Well, I was never taught this was grammatically incorrect, but it's definitely uneducated, so we agree that "espero que yo (no)" should not be used. Yet, as I said, in the last example, with "nadie", this third person allows the construction.
As for "espero que no he corrido rápidamente", "esperar que" needs either a subjunctive or the infinitive for the same subject; so the only grammatically correct solution is "espero no haber corrido". :) |
Awesome explanations. Once again, thank you so much, AngelicaDeAlquezar.
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