"A cat will not punish a kitten if it has eaten a mouse."
Translation:Kato ne punos katidon se ĝi manĝis muson.
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Shouldn't these verbs be in the -us form, since it's describing a hypothetical situation?
Replying to my own comment because I think I understand now. 'Se' with conditional tense indicates a situation that isn't true, "This isn't the case, but if it were...". 'Se' with another tense indicates that the thing either is true or might be, and that either way a consequence is linked.
In this case, we're being told a general statement about cats. If this one thing about a cat is true, this other thing is true too. There's no false situation being discussed, only a general rule that's being stated to be true. Using the conditional would mean something more like "If a kitten had eaten a mouse, a cat would not punish it (but that didn't happen)".
i think they are close but not exact, like: a cat should not punish a kiten if it were to eat a mouse ...pardonu se mi malpravas