NoordZee:I am not at your level of Esperanto knowledge but have followed the discussions with great interest. Just a few more observations.
Whether one translates 'Ŝi estas amata de ĉiuj' into German as 'Sie wird von allen (von jedem) geliebt'(Alle lieben sie) or into Dutch 'Zij wordt van iedereen gehouden'(Iedereen houdt van haar)it is clear to me that this state of being loved is continuing from the past when it started into some undetermined future. I would indeed be inclined to use the -ata form.

As regards the conversation about 'rompi', what do you think of this: you walk into a room and discover a broken vase. You could call out: "Oh, this vase is broken." "Ho, tiu vaso estas rompata." You describe a present state or would you still prefer the -ita form?

I continue to follow this discussion with interest.

I'd say "rompita"; as the act of breaking the vase has already happened. "Rompi" means to break (something), so if the vase is already in pieces all over the floor, it is not currently having that action done to it. And so for past tense I'd say "la vazo estis rompita" because it was conclusively broken, and did not continue in the action of becoming broken.

Whereas with amata, if I say "ŝi estas amata" that would mean that she is currently being loved by someone, as opposed to "ŝi estas amita" which would be like she was loved by someone, but isn't anymore. As love is a continuing action, if I was to put this in the past tense, I'd say "ŝi estis amata", as "ŝi estis amita" sounds like at some point someone conclusively loved her and got it over with; which doesn't make much sense .

In my mind, there is an intuitive way to look at participles. But I struggle to articulate it in a way that makes sense. Let me try again (and apologies if I repeat myself).

I start from the premise (based on a straightforward reading of Rule 6 of the Fundamento) that Esperanto has only three simple (basic) time-tenses which themselves convey no information about aspect, duration, etc. - that must be specified elsewhere, either by immediate context, or by use of -ek, -ad, etc.

This means that "esti + participle" must be viewed as a pure compound of two simple tenses, that is, with the participle tense being relative to the time established in esti.

It follows that we must resist the temptation to make further inferences on the duration, aspect, immediacy, etc., beyond the relativity of the simple tenses. Most of the time the intended nuance is intuitively obvious, but it is not inherent in the tenses.

To explicate, let's use an example verb that everyone, including PAG, can agree has both result and continuity: konstrui.

1) La domo estas konstruata. = Or, from the perspective of someone in the present, oni konstruas la domon.

2) La domo estas konstruita. = From the perspective of someone living in the present, oni konstruis la domon.

3) La domo estis konstruata. = From the perspective of someone living in the past, oni konstruas la domon.

4) La domo estis konstruita. = From the perspective of someone living in the past: oni konstruis la domon.

By making this wordy substitution, it is clear that one can no more determine completedness, aspect, immediacy, etc. of the house's construction from any of these passives, than from a sentence like Mi legis libron.

One can replace konstrui with any verb, including rompi, and the rubric will hold.

Compare with a relevant portion of PMEG (28.4.2):

PMEG:Kunmetita IT-formo montras plenumiĝon de ago, aŭ agon, kiu donis rezulton. IT-formo ja povas montri tempon pli fruan ol alia, sed tre ofte ne estas tiel.

Tiam la vero estis eltrovita. = La eltrovo de la vero plenumiĝis ĝuste tiam, aŭ antaŭ tiam, laŭ la kunteksto.

It seems this actually supports my thesis that only simple tenses exist. Whether the truth was found out right at the time of estis or earlier is immaterial. Both senses are technically referring to relative-past events, and are thus fair game for -ita.

La vero estis eltrovita. = Oni eltrovis la veron at the time of the past event initially described. Even if the intended nuance was Oni ĵus trovis la veron, we would still use the past tense, since trovas would imply that the finding is currently ongoing in some way.

Actually, I don't know if what I said above is any good. It made perfect sense at the time, but in retrospect I think I left something important out.

As it is, it appears I've made estis rompata and estas rompita essentially semantically equivalent. This doesn't seem right.

My intuition (which I continue to rely upon) is that -ata always stresses the continuity. When we say estis rompata, we are stressing the continuity of it being broken up in the past. When we say estas rompita, we are stressing that it is now in the state of having been broken.

Tekstaro is giving me conflicting information. I'm seeing all kinds of participle combinations used without a particular care for precision (including forms that either PMEG or PAG would probably dislike). Are Esperantists and their editors just careless? Many pages of grammar books and several bloated forum posts later, I'm still confused.

Maybe I'm just overthinking things. PMEG 28.4 looks fairly good to me.

Can someone with a much better linguistic sense help?

Tempodivalse:Actually, I don't know if what I said above is any good. It made perfect sense at the time, but in retrospect I think I left something important out.
As it is, it appears I've made estis rompata and estas rompita essentially semantically equivalent. This doesn't seem right.
My intuition (which I continue to rely upon) is that -ata always stresses the continuity. When we say estis rompata, we are stressing the continuity of it being broken up in the past. When we say estas rompita, we are stressing that it is now in the state of having been broken.

Tekstaro is giving me conflicting information. I'm seeing all kinds of participle combinations used without a particular care for precision (including forms that either PMEG or PAG would probably dislike). Are Esperantists and their editors just careless? Many pages of grammar books and several bloated forum posts later, I'm still confused.

Maybe I'm just overthinking things. PMEG 28.4 looks fairly good to me.

Can someone with a much better linguistic sense help?

Tempodivalse, as always thank you so much for your continuing efforts to make sense of the -ita- and -ata rules. As far as I am concerned, you have been making sense ever since your first reply and I don't think that you actually have a problem with articulating all this. I consider that by and large I understand the various explanations and, as stated before, I feel the need to spend much more time on both PMEG and PAG. As an aside, and yes we have covered this previously, you got to understand the confusion that besets me. Perhaps the difference between amata and deprimita is that the former is an action and the latter a state. Both will continue into the future. It truly is mind-boggling.

Christa 627 said:
I'd say "rompita"; as the act of breaking the vase has already happened. "Rompi" means to break (something), so if the vase is already in pieces all over the floor, it is not currently having that action done to it. And so for past tense I'd say "la vazo estis rompita" because it was conclusively broken, and did not continue in the action of becoming broken.

Whereas with amata, if I say "ŝi estas amata" that would mean that she is currently being loved by someone, as opposed to "ŝi estas amita" which would be like she was loved by someone, but isn't anymore. As love is a continuing action, if I was to put this in the past tense, I'd say "ŝi estis amata", as "ŝi estis amita" sounds like at some point someone conclusively loved her and got it over with; which doesn't make much sense .

Thank you for your information. I put this sentence up about the broken vase to see if there were any exceptions to the rules already discussed in earlier replies. I agree that the breaking of the vase took place earlier and the action has been completed, hence -ita. At least love will continue and hence -ata

Tempodivalse:As it is, it appears I've made estis rompata and estas rompita essentially semantically equivalent. This doesn't seem right.

Perfect.
The equivalency is fine and makes perfect sense: the auxiliary and the participle are juxtaposed in tense and are in the broad sense the same.. any ambiguities can be cleared up as the author deems necessary with those other words Z thought might be used.

The English, 'was broken', and 'has been broken' are roughly as equivalent as your Eo example. In English (as this is an English forum), the aux verb changes from 'to be' to 'to have', but changes tense as the Eo 'esti' from past 'estis' to present 'estas'; the participle changes from 'broken' (current state arising from the past) to 'been broken' (Past current state arising from deeper in the past)
If something estis rompata, or if something else estas rompita when I walk in, I am going to find a broken thing.. unless of course the thing estas reparita, or estis reparata.

Of course, if it estas reparata, my son probably still has the bottle of glue in his hands.

First point: the historic at/ita dispute is now a dead duck. I don't know what it was about the grammars of certain languages eg German, Dutch, Danish that caused certain Esperantists to get their knickers in a twist, but atismoj seem to have gone the way of the Dodo.

An example of an atismo would be Li estis naskata la 2-an de Marto (he was born on the 2nd of March) which in standard Esperanto would be Li estis naskita la 2-an de Marto

Second point: however you want to classify -ata and -ita linguistically (aspectual or not), the usage of these suffixes can be simply understood from:

1. The dictionary definitions in PIV: -at Suf. esprimanta pasivon dum plenumiĝo (t.e daŭro aŭ ripetiĝo de la procezo); -it Suf. esprimanta pasivon kaj ĝisfinan plenumon.

2. What the verb represents in the real world. Some verbs are predominantly verbs of result without duration (rompi), some tend to describe enduring states or processes without completion in a result (ami), and some can describe both a process and a result (konstrui).

3. What the viewpoint is of the speaker (is the incomplete process more important or the result). This can overide the natural tendency for a particular verb to be more commonly used with -ata or -ita.

I would hardly say Nordzee that this is truly mind-boggling.

Native speakers of English may have to stop and think from time to time about the choice between -ata and -ita because English may not make the distinction explicit.

'Latin was spoken in the middle ages' requires 'parolata'. 'Was spoken' doesn't flag this.

On the other hand in 'While my car is being repaired ...' English flags that you require 'riparata'.

Tempo:but in retrospect I think I left something important out

What you left out is that in rewriting estis/estas X-ata/X-ita, it makes a difference what X is - what the verb represents in the real world. Though I think your explanation with konstrui is quite helpful.

sudanglo:
I would hardly say Nordzee that this is truly mind-boggling.

The problem is that grammars will give you a fairly clean-cut, straightforward outline of how these forms should be used (even the arcane PAG). Then you get into real-world texts and discover (usually plausible-sounding) usages that contradict the account you've been given - be it PAG, PMEG, or PIV.

The reason I'm struggling is because Tekstaro is not giving me a coherent, straightforward picture of actual usage - even in staple texts like the Malnova Testamento, etc.

Yet surely Tekstaro is not merely an "erar-aro". And then we have canonical Zamenhofian constructions like estos rompata which PAG labels incorrect, and with which PMEG might be unhappy with also.

Oni rompas la vazon, reports our time traveler to us, as he witnesses a past event. La vazo estis rompata, we say now, of the event from our perspective in the present, referring to my rubric.

So the difference between Y estas X-ita and Y estis X-ata is simply that we change the initial temporal perspective - are we looking at a state of Y as Y was in the past, or in the present?

The odd thing is that I intuitively feel which form is better. I rarely agonise between the combinations of esti + ?ta in normal speech. Yet explaining it in a way that makes sense and accurately reflects standard usage, is difficult.

Tempodivalse:So the difference between Y estas X-ita and Y estis X-ata is simply that we change the initial temporal perspective - are we looking at a state of Y as Y was in the past, or in the present?

The odd thing is that I intuitively feel which form is better

I'm a little confused here. How could there possibly be any hesitation about which form to use? If you're talking about a state in the present use "estas". If it's a state (or action) in the past then use "estis". Why is it odd that you wouldn't agonise over this?