Parsing Out the Uses of ている

Question

Over the course of this year, I have been realizing my understanding of ている was rather limited; for some reason 占める and 占めている is the same, and for some reason 招いている and 招いた can be the same in context (check my comments); there are many other rules that came up. I will provide a summary of my current understanding here, and I would like if someone can provide their inputs on my current understanding, as well as my interpretation of the uses of ている that confuse me.

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Progressive State

1. Something is happening right now.
2. Something you or someone is doing right now.
3. Something that has been happening, though not necessarily right now, but regularly.
4. Something you or someone has been doing for sometime, though necessarily right now, but regularly. I think this is straight forward.

I believe these are straight forward.

Resultative State (Here and Here)

1. A state brought about by some thing or phenomenon.

紙は破れている, "The paper is torn."

2. If the state does not have an actor (or is an exception), can be used as a past-tense clause.

破れた紙, "the Torn Paper"

Adverbs or context tend to clarify if something is resultative or progressive.

Stative vs. Punctual Verbs

1. Stative verbs can either be る or ている and still be understood the same; some of these verbs are preferably in the る form and not ている.

占める and 占めている when referred to making up a percentage is stative.

Current interests are explained by 気になる, not 気になっている; both are correct, but the former is used more.

2. Punctual verbs vary in meaning whether it is る or ている.

シャツは濡れる is "my shirt will get wet"; シャツは濡れている is "my shirt is wet."

This is I think the exceptional nature of some parts of Japanese language, that can only be learned over time.

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As for my confusion. I was recently confused on the interchangeable use of 招いた and 招いている in this question, as well as @naruto saying that 会長は招いている and 会長は招いている either means "The boss invited [them]" or "The boss has been invited." I am also confused by the difference between "客は招いている" and "ホストは招いている." Let me lay out my current understanding:

招いている versus 招いた: I can only assume that in context, 招く is a stative verb. My current understanding accommodated る and ている being the same, but from this, ている and た can also be the same in certain contexts. (My use of "stative" may be wrong here; if so, please correct me.)

会長は招いている has a meaning of "the boss (was/has been) invited," which is identical to 会長は招いた; however, it also has the meaning of the boss invited [someone], but the person was dropped in the sentence.

I think the above one confused me because of how I interpreted 客は招いている and ホストは招いている; I assume the person in the dialogue was trying to make a witty statement to his guest, and I got both "The customer has been invited (resultative)" and "the host is inviting (progressive)." By this, 会長は招いている can also be "The boss is inviting," BUT NOT "We are inviting the boss," as that is 会長を招いている; to say, the grammatical form 〇〇は〇〇に[人]を招く still needs to be obeyed.

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I believe my conclusions might be correct, but...are they? Did I misappropriate any grammar rules?

Answer 1

You are asking about two almost unrelated grammatical points, which makes your discussion unnecessarily complicated.

First, the simpler part: Aは招く means either "[someone] invites A" or "A invites [someone]". This is because は is a topic marker and can mark both a subject and an object. You need to determine the correct interpretation purely based on the context. Similarly, Aは招いている means either "[someone] has invited A = A has been invited" or "A has invited [someone]". This by itself has nothing to do with tense or aspect.

Next, 招く is not a stative verb but a simple punctual (instantaneous state-change) verb like 送る and 死ぬ. This means 招いている usually means "have invited" rather than "(currently) is inviting". Since it's not a stative verb, 私はあなたを招く refers to a future action ("I will invite you"), not a current 'invited' status. On the other hand, stative verbs are verbs that describe a state without ている. For example, we don't say ^❌本があっている (^❌"The book is existing") because ある is a stative verb.

招いている and 招いた are often interchangeable, just as "I've invited you" and "I invited you" are often interchangeable in English. 招いている refers to the current status as the result of a past action, whereas 招いた refers to the simple action in the past. But this distinction is not always important.

The discussion between 占める and 占めている, 必要とする and 必要としている, 彼が知ること and 彼が知っていること, and so on is interesting, and these verbs do behave sometimes like punctual verbs and sometimes like stative verbs. However, this has little to do with the interpretation of the original example involving 招いている.