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 (molesté) a nadie. (Imperfect Sunjunctive not allowed here) (It's not the subjunctive per se; it's the negative form of the verb in constructions like "esperar/desear que". Here, the use of the subjunctive doesn't sound so clumsy because there is a third person involved: "nadie", so it may be used. I'd still keep the first construction instead.) ;)

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.