Saluton al ĉiuj!

I hope someone can help me with something that's been confusing me, which is how to use the subjunctive in combination with past/present/future tense.

Consider this sentence:

"If I had been more polite, it would not have happened."

Here I want to express a condition that must be met, aswell as a time when it would have needed to be met (in the past, because of "had").

I got 2 suggested sentences from the chatroom, but I can't see how either of them are sufficent. Maybe I'm missing something, but here are the 2 sentences:

"Se mi estus estinta pli ĝentila, ĝi ne estus okazinta."

...and...

"Se mi estintus pli ĝentila, ĝi ne estus okazinta."

With both these sentences, the conditional is obviously present with the "us" suffix, but how is the past tense indicated? The best the above sentences appear to me to do is indicate the completed nature of the "being more polite" with the "inta" suffix, but this dosn't really indicate that the condition is based on something that happened in the past. Or at least any more than it might be the present or the future.

Can anyone suggest another way of translating my sentence, or are the above valid in a way I just can't see?

I learned that technically -us translates this kind of hypothetical phrasing regardless of the time of the action. "Mi irus se mi povus" means both "I would go if I could" and "I would have gone if I had been able to".

However, in spoken language (and often in written language as well) I often find a construction similar to compound tenses, but with -us on the auxiliary verb (est/i), as in "Mi estus irinta se mi estus povinta". This can then be shortened to "Mi irintus se mi povintus", using the same basic rules of Esperanto, and it is a very widespread way of phrasing it.

As for your example, I'd say,
"Se mi estintus pli edukita (pli bone edukita, pli ĝentila), tio ne okazintus".

But (and more experienced speakers are welcome to correct me if I am wrong), in theory "se mi estus pli edukita, tio ne okazus" would mean the same.

To supplement mnlg's response (all of which is correct), I'll add that the "past tense" part of your sentence is indeed that -int- ending. That's all you need to indicate past tense in this case.

I don't really view the -int- ending as indicating a completed action. It is simply a past participle. It can indicate a completed action, in the right context ("Mi estas irinta"), or it can mean a past tense, in certain other contexts (like this one).

The one thing I want to emphasize about your sentences is that I would *not* use "ĝi". Ĝi is a pronoun, meaning that it replaces a noun. Unless you are actually using it to replace a noun, don't use "ĝi". Note that the word "it" is used in English far more often than "ĝi" is used in Esperanto.

In this case, since you are talking about something that happened, you are probably referring to a verb or a phrase that includes a verb. In this case, "tio" would be the appropriate word to use instead of "ĝi" (as mnlg suggested in his comments)

The method of mnlg is described by DG page 134 as frequently used. However Page 404 of PMEG (by the same author) indicates that another way round the problem might be to put in a word for the past in addition to the conditional -US ending, thus: 'Se mi estus pli edukita hieraŭ, tio ne okazus'.

erinja:I don't really view the -int- ending as indicating a completed action.

I do, and IMHO Esperanto is very regular in this. The participle does not determine the time of the action, but the state of the action. The verb supplies the time. "Manĝita" means eaten, not necessarily now, but perhaps in the past or in the future. The determination of the time is supplied by the auxiliar verb (est/i).

Of course, when you say "Mi estos manĝinta", you imply that in the future, the action of eating will be concluded, and therefore it will appear to have happened earlier than the time pertaining to the verb. But the main meaning to me still remains completeness. This is perhaps better illustrated by passive participles. "legata libro" is a book that is, has been, or will be in the process of being read. It's about the state of the action, not the time in which it happens. Of course, in relation to the verb, the action will appear to be happening in the present, but the participle itself only denotes the state of the action.

This is how I understand participles in Esperanto (especially after an interesting explanation provided by mr. Wennergren during a small grammar-related conference in IJK 1999) and how I teach them every day. I might be wrong, but I am quite convinced of their symmetry and I think this is their main purpose.