tommjames:

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?

What is odd is that I cannot find a formulation of the usage rules that consistently conforms to observed good usage (assuming that Zamenhof, Tekstaro texts etc. are good models). I can intuit it, but not express it.

Maybe PAG's distinction between result, result-only and non-result verbs is helpful in untangling this (though I still disagree that result-only verbs should never take -ata).

Y estas X-ita and Y estis X-ata are semantically near-identical for result and non-result verbs.

I find mi estis amata intuitively better than mi estas amita, although they essentially mean the same thing with slightly different focus: I was in the state of being loved at that time, versus I am now in the state of being loved in the past. But the "being loved" is in the past, both ways.

Replace ami (non-result) with konstrui (result and continuity verb) and you have a similar picture.

Then we get to ĝi estas rompita vs ĝi estis rompata (result-only verb), where the difference seems more pronounced - in the latter, more emphasis is placed on the continuity of the being broken in the past.

The corresponding paraphrase sounds off: It is now in the state of being broken in the past, versus it was in the state of being broken at that time.

In other words - where X is a result-only verb, estis X-ata stresses continuity of X (since X is not characteristically continuous), whereas estas X-ita declares only the result.

I worry that I'm grossly overthinking this.

Tempodivalse:I worry that I'm grossly overthinking this.

Not really. But you have arrived at a point where other Esperantists have been before you: at the insight that the cake is a lie!

The Esperanto grammar is not defined in 16 rules. By no means.
Those 16 rules give some general guidance but do not fully describe the Esperanto grammar (otherwise we wouldn't need 100s of pages of other grammars). The 16 rules actually leave more out than they include.

"Which participle to use for the passive" is one of the open questions.
"When to use the article" is another.
"Which are the agreement rules between predicate nouns and there antecedents" is yet another.
And so on.

Esperanto is not a language whose grammar can be described in 16 simple rules.

Tempodivalse:What is odd is that I cannot find a formulation of the usage rules that consistently conforms to observed good usage

I lean towards the view expressed by sudanglo earlier in the thread that correct usage can be understood fairly simply from the meanings of the participles (-at = ongoing/repeating, -it = fulfilment of the action), and the meaning or concept encapsulated by the verb, including any aspectual distinctions.

Sometimes these factors will make one or the other participle more desirable, but sometimes it wont matter that much. The example verb 'okupi' given by the OP illustrates the latter point quite well, and PMEG has a very good explanation:

PMEG (translated):Some verbs have two different meanings, and the selection of participle will depend on which of the two you meant. A classic example is the verb 'okupi', which can mean 'take occupation of' or 'hold in occupation'. Taking is normally a momentary action, and therefore the more interesting thing is the fulfilment of the action. Holding is a longer process, and therefore the continuation of the action is more interesting. However, after taking follows holding, and before holding there is normally a taking. Therefore with 'okupi' you can often use -IT or -AT however you prefer without any practical difference.

Mi estas tre okupata de mia laboro. = Mia laboro nun “tenas min” (plu kaj plu), ĉar ĝi antaŭe “prenis min”.
Mi estas tre okupita de mia laboro. = Mia laboro (definitive) “prenis min”, kaj tial ĝi nun “tenas min”.

I don't know about you but this seems like fairly straightforward stuff to me. Do you have any examples of where the ideal usage is more difficult to determine?

I may repeat myself, but about a year ago I wrote a little paper on ata/ita and especially the Zamenhofian exceptions to the itists' views.

In short, sudanglio is totally right: -ata expresses something as ongoing, while -ita something as finished (with possible resulting state). This is very near, but not identical to aspect, in my view.

tommjames:I lean towards the view expressed by sudanglo earlier in the thread that correct usage can be understood fairly simply from the meanings of the participles (-at = ongoing/repeating, -it = fulfilment of the action), and the meaning or concept encapsulated by the verb, including any aspectual distinctions.

[...]

I don't know about you but this seems like fairly straightforward stuff to me.

Sudanglo and others indicated this to me, but before I was convinced of it, I needed to think through everything on my own - which involved lots of running around in circles and rediscovering things people had already told me. That's just how I learn.

My confusion started when Sudanglo objected to my example by mentioning duration-verbs, and then I checked what PAG had to say, and got tangled up in its prescriptivism - which flew in the face of the Tekstaro.

Then I attempted to break down the participle/verb combinations as simply and neatly as possible, but this was spoiled when I discovered that estas X-ita and estis X-ata had similar meanings for some verbs, but not for others.

What I failed to see is that certain verbs have intuitively a certain characteristic duration (or lack thereof), which explains the similarity between estas amita and estis amata, but the higher emphasis on continuity in estis rompata over estas rompita.

My basic intuitions were fine, I just didn't consider this extra factor in my participle analysis:

La vazo estas rompita. = Our time traveller is in the present (estas) and reports to us: Oni rompis la vazon.

La vazo estis rompata. = Our time traveller is in the past (estis) and reports to us: Oni rompas la vazon (nun). However, there is (usually) a very limited time frame during which it would be true for the time traveller to utter this sentence. So we intuitively feel that the breaking must have lasted a longer time, otherwise the traveller would have reported: Oni (ĵus) rompis la vazon. Similarly, in Mi nun rompas la statuon, I'm taking some time to wreck it.

Yes, this is silly and horribly long-winded - but it helps me, and it also explains some examples I initially found odd in the Tekstaro. I think I see the light now.

P.S. I still disagree with PAG and Sudanglo that there is (usually) something wrong or weird with rompata (and similar non-duration verbs) to emphasise a duration. There is significant precedent in Tesktaro for such usage. Still, Sudanglo's mention of duration was the key to the whole puzzle. Thanks to all for putting up with my ramblings.

sudanglo: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.

Sudanglo, I am sure that you are correct that it is not mind-boggling from your perspective. Please bear in mind that I am currently on a very steep learning curve. In fact, thanks to your input as well as tempodivalse and others, I am rapidly catching up on an issue which most people at my current level of knowledge of Esperanto probably would not touch. I am not a native English speaker but have been away from the Netherlands since 1974. Thanks to this forum, I understand much better now what considerations are involved when looking at issues like -ata and -ita.

Tempodivalse:P.S. I still disagree with PAG and Sudanglo that there is (usually) something wrong or weird with rompata (and similar non-duration verbs) to emphasise a duration.

For what it's worth I don't think "rompata" is necessarily strange either, regardless of whatever aspectual category PAG chooses to put 'rompi' into. You gave the example of something resilient being broken by someone over a duration... seems fine to me. Just as we can say "is being broken" in English without sounding strange, I think "estas rompata" is fine.

Kirilo81:I may repeat myself, but about a year ago I wrote a little paper on ata/ita and especially the Zamenhofian exceptions to the itists' views.

In short, sudanglio is totally right: -ata expresses something as ongoing, while -ita something as finished (with possible resulting state). This is very near, but not identical to aspect, in my view.

Kirilo81, thank you for making available your paper which I shall read.

Human beings are very good at abstracting from a few examples.

There are many breed of dogs - they come in all shapes and sizes. But you don't have to show a child all the variants of dogs to get him to the point of identifying as a dog a particular breed that the child has not previously encountered. (I understand that those at the frontier of machine intelligence are now developing neural nets to do the same sort of trick.)

Obviously this power of abstraction also applies when it comes to the grammatical features of language.

It should not be surprising to you Tempo that you can intuit the use of ata and ita, without being able to algorithmically articulate the difference.

Another thing human beings are very good at, is interpreting differently according to context.

Alice was asleep on the bank. The night watchman was sleeping in the bank.

Or more relevantly, it is not a problem if the meaning of X-ata and X-ita depend on X and the rest of the sentence.

If I say that the usage of ata and ita is not mind-boggling, I have in mind that learning to use these suffixes is not monstrously difficult.Formulating a description of the usage is another matter.

You can recognize a dog as a dog when you see one, but cataloguing how you do that is another matter.

Let's not compare apples with oranges.

sudanglo:Human beings are very good at abstracting from a few examples.

There are many breed of dogs - they come in all shapes and sizes. But you don't have to show a child all the variants of dogs to get him to the point of identifying as a dog a particular breed that the child has not previously encountered. (I understand that those at the frontier of machine intelligence are now developing neural nets to do the same sort of trick.)

Obviously this power of abstraction also applies when it comes to the grammatical features of language.

It should not be surprising to you Tempo that you can intuit the use of ata and ita, without being able to algorithmically articulate the difference.

Another thing human beings are very good at, is interpreting differently according to context.

Alice was asleep on the bank. The night watchman was sleeping in the bank.

Or more relevantly, it is not a problem if the meaning of X-ata and X-ita depend on X and the rest of the sentence.

If I say that the usage of ata and ita is not mind-boggling, I have in mind that learning to use these suffixes is not monstrously difficult.Formulating a description of the usage is another matter.

You can recognize a dog as a dog when you see one, but cataloguing how you do that is another matter.

Let's not compare apples with oranges.

In the end, once you know another language, you no longer stop to analyse every sentence in terms of time and conjugation. You do this automatically. Although English (UK English ) is my second language, I most certainly do not stop to determine how it is written, taking into account tenses, spelling, and spoken. I just know and that comes with practice. I can say the same in respect of Dutch (my mother tongue) and German (in my case). Each language has its own idiosyncrasies and Esperanto is no different in my opinion. Once you know Esperanto as some of you do, you know intuitively how to use the various tenses including the seemingly challenging -ata and -ita forms. I must admit that the various tenses in Esperanto are not that difficult to understand but the examples given in the various discussions on this matter are the ones that have given me some difficulty. Again, I now already understand much more of the intricacies of -ata and -ita in respect of certain passive participles than at the time I launched my enquiry. My time will surely come.