if you read before or while saying : Mi jam logxas 5 jarojn cxi tie. Then it would have those connotations of contraryness to expectation.But this is expressed with intonation.

I`d love erinja to say her word in this topic.

I feel that i understand now what you mean.

This sentence is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You feel that you "now" understand me. That is, you didn't before, but now you do. A state change.

This particular state change is not emphasising any kind of suprise or anything contrary to expectation or planning. As such it seems to me (due to my possibly incorrect reading of PMEG) to be something you could use 'jam' for, rather than what I as a native English speaker would prefer, which would be 'nun'.

This crops up often when I'm talking to esperantists. I ask someone to hurry up and put their headphones on so they can listen to an mp3 I send them. They tell me to wait, then finally they say.. "Okej, mi jam portas miajn orelaŭdilojn". Which is simply to say, my headphone-wearing state just changed.

There is nothing in the "already" sense about such a phrase. Of course it can be that way, but the above example is one where it isn't. And I encounter this quite often.

tommjames:

I feel that i understand now what you mean.

This sentence is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You feel that you "now" understand me. That is, you didn't before, but now you do. A state change.

This particular state change is not emphasising any kind of suprise or anything contrary to expectation or planning. As such it seems to me (due to my possibly incorrect reading of PMEG) to be something you could use 'jam' for, rather than what I as a native English speaker would prefer, which would be 'nun'.

This crops up often when I'm talking to esperantists. I ask someone to hurry up and put their headphones on so they can listen to an mp3 I send them. They tell me to wait, then finally they say.. "Okej, mi jam portas miajn orelaŭdilojn". Which is simply to say, my headphone-wearing state just changed.

There is nothing in the "already" sense about such a phrase. Of course it can be that way, but the above example is one where it isn't. And I encounter this quite often.

Mi nun komprenas kion vi volis diri al mi.- is right sentence.
If i say : mi jam komprenas ...- this would mean that i try to let you know that i know something while you suppose the other or i think that you do so.
As for "Okej, mi jam portas miajn orelaŭdilojn". In this very situation the usage of "jam" is absolutly correct.It means that speaker knows that you whanted him to take them on and lets you know that your whant is met.that his state is changed from what it was to what you whanted

I really think this is a question about how PMEG should be read, than the word jam.

Here

Please look at the first section of the page, which finishes with the quote numbered FE.25.

In this section, it states quite clearly there is a sense in which 'jam' refers to change in state. In that section, no mention whatsoever is made of anything like earlierness or suprise or anything contrary to expectation or planning. Those things come in later sections, which refer to different aspects of usage. It simply says change of state. Nothing else.

Forgetting everything we can say about how 'jam' ought to be translated and how in experience we have seen it used, can I ask if anybody else does or dosn't read that section of the PMEG page the same way I do?

The key thing is whether 'jam' can or cannot be used to indicate a state change without connatations of earlyness, suprise etc. If the answer is that it can't, (and responses so far seem to point that way) then I'd want to reconcile that with what is clearly stated on that PMEG page, apparently to the contrary.

Hi

I read the section you cited in the PMEG. In my interpretation, it is *not* saying that "jam" must have a connotation of surprise or earliness. It can have that connotation, but it doesn't have to. Rather, it is emphasizing the timing of something. More on that at the bottom of my posting.

If you are reading the PMEG, then probably your Esperanto is good enough to make use of an Esperanto-only dictionary. This is the step I recommend when you have doubts about the true meaning of a word, or the correct use of the word. Lernu has a basic Esperanto-only dictionary, but I like the dictionary at www.reta-vortaro.de

It is an easy way to get a second opinion, whether your original source is lernu, or the PMEG, or another Esperantist who uses a word in a way you're unsure of, etc. Not to say that any given dictionary is the "be-all and end-all" of dictionaries, but it is a good way to get an overview of meanings in case of doubt.

In this case, this is the reta vortaro definition for "jam", annotated with some translations; some formatting has been lost in the copying, but whenever you see a big Z at the end of a text, it means that it's a Zamenhof quote:

1. Depost nun; ekde nun; senplie; senalie; sen plua atendo: [from now, since now, without something else, without further ado] mi jam havas mian ĉapelon, nun serĉu vi vianZ; jam estas tempo iri domen [1]; ni iras al nia celo jam kun plena trankvilecoZ; riĉigadi la lingvon per novaj vortoj oni povas jam nunZ; ĉu vi forgesas jam, ke vi kristano estas?.

2. Tuj depost tiam; tuj ekde tiam: [Immediately following that time, immediately since that time] post unu horo la forno estis jam varma; jam de tri tagoj mi ne fermis la okulojn; vi bezonas nur meti en la leteron iun vortareton, k la adresulo vin jam komprenosZ; kiel longe (depost kiam) vi estas jam fosisto?Z; jam dek jarojn (depost dek jaroj) li loĝas tie ĉi; tia uzado estus jam arbitraĵo kaj kondukus al ĥaosoZ; post unu sola duonhoro li ekposedas la tutan gramatikon k al li restas jam nur la simpla kaj facila akirado de provizo da vortojZ; vi bezonas nur simple ekpensi pri la esenco de tiu ĉi frazoj kaj vi jam komprenos, ke [la kritikoj] ne havas eĉ la plej malgrandan fundamentonZ.

3. Antaŭ nun: [before now] se li jam venis, petu lin al miZ; ĉu vi jam trovis vian horloĝon?Z; li jam kelkfoje demandis pri vi; mi jam diris al vi, ke mi foriras.

4. Antaŭ tiam: [before then, before that time] kiam vi vidis nin en la salono, li jam antaŭe diris al mi la veron [2]; kiam via domo estis konstruata, mia domo estis jam longe konstruita [3]; mi ŝin enbrakigis, sed ŝi jam mortis.

5. Pli frue ol oni atendas aŭ atendis [earlier than expected]: post semajno eble vi trovos jam ian sciigon; la verko estas jam preta; li kredas sukcesi kaj jam ridetas.

----

In conclusion - I like your idea of changing of states, and I think it is a good way to explain it. My personal understanding of jam, in a nutshell (and without complicated multiple definitions) is that you are emphasising the "now"-ness or the "then"-ness of something. If you look at the sample sentences with the dictionary definitions above, you'll see that in most cases you can remove "jam" without much difference in meaning. I see it mainly as an emphasis word, to emphasize the timing of something. And if you think about it, we use "already" in a similar sense in English, albeit in much more limited circumstances than jam is seen in Esperanto.

For example, "Have you eaten yet?" "Yes, I have already eaten." I don't see this as an instance where I ate earlier than expected. And I could have said simply, "Yes, I have eaten". But by adding "already", I am emphasizing that the action has been done previously, it is finished now. We also use "by now" or "by the time..." in a similar way, and that can also be translated by jam in some cases. "Post unu horo, la forno jam estos varma" - you can loosely translate this as "By the time one hour has passed, the oven will be hot"

Hi erinja thanks for that. It's making some more sense now.

It does however seem to affirm my original query, which came out of what I saw as a possible ambiguity when saying something like "Mi jam havas mian ĉapelon", which I am invariably told to translate as "I already have my hat", despite the fact that number 1) in your quoted definition actually has that phrase and seems to want to put it into a "I *now* have my hat" kind of formation...

[from b]now[/b], since now, without something else, without further ado] mi jam havas mian ĉapelon

..if you see what I mean.

In the light of this, surely "Mi jam havas mian ĉapelon" could in fact translate equally well to either,

"I already have my hat"
or
"I now have my hat"

..where the former phrase is more in accord with number 3) from the definition, and the latter phrase in accord with number 1).

Would you agree there? If so, how might we go about making the time sense more clearly defined?

tommjames:Hi erinja thanks for that. It's making some more sense now.

It does however seem to affirm my original query, which came out of what I saw as a possible ambiguity when saying something like "Mi jam havas mian ĉapelon", which I am invariably told to translate as "I already have my hat", despite the fact that number 1) in your quoted definition actually has that phrase and seems to want to put it into a "I *now* have my hat" kind of formation...

Yes, you could understand that sentence either way, written without context (and without vocal emphasis to give you additional information). You could say "Jam nun mi havas mian ĉapelon" to emphasize the now part, rather than the already part.

Or "Jen, mi nun havas mian ĉapelon"

But in most cases I think context would make the meaning clear. And even if it doesn't, in some cases you have to ask yourself, is this really an important distinction to make? I have my hat now, whatever the circumstances surrounding it, and sometimes that's all that matters!

Interesting. Dankon al ĉiuj pro viaj komentoj.

tommjames:In the light of this, surely "Mi jam havas mian ĉapelon" could in fact translate equally well to either,

"I already have my hat"
or
"I now have my hat"

I think you could look it this way. The word "jam" functions as some sort of timeless "now". You could say, "li vokis min por eliri, sed [tiam] mi jam havis mian ĉapelon". Substituting "jam" with "nun" wouldn't work.

Also, the opposite of "jam" is "ankoraŭ ne", but there's no opposite for "nun" (except maybe "ne nun" )