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present tense 2 ~어 있다

# Posted: 5 Jul 2009 00:31 KST - Edited by: _joseph_
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PRESENT CONTINUOUS for a state

This is similar to (2) the PRESENT CONTINUOUS but replace the 고 with the 어/아 form.

The 어/아 있다 present form indicates a state (has opened) or continuuing action (have been doing).

That is, 어 있다 and 아 있다 is a state of being verb. For example:

The door is closed.
문이 닫쳐 있다.

The door is open.
문이 열려 있다.

The knife is stuck in the ground.
칼이 땅에 꽂혀 있다.

In the above examples we can agree that closed, open, and stuck are action verbs -- the door closed, the door opened, the knife stuck in the ground. BUT when you need these action verbs to take on a certain state of being or respectively, is stuck is closed is open we need to use this ㅓ 있다 like you mentioned.

some more examples:
문이 열려 있었습니다 the door was in the open state or alternatively The door has been sitting there open
도둑은 내 방을 샅샅이 뒤져 놓았습니다 (from 뒤지다 to rummage through)

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