Subjunctive (1st Person Singular)

[fglorca]

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.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

1. Siento haber llegado tarde.
2. Siento por llegar tarde. (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) (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.
• 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?

[fglorca]

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).

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

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".

[fglorca]

Awesome explanations. Once again, thank you so much, AngelicaDeAlquezar.