"Continuous" vs "Discontinuous" verbs: What to call them in English and Japanese?


On my trip home today, I was thinking about how うちに帰っている would be incorrect
for my current situation, as I'm currently travelling home and not already at
home. I'll walk through my thought process from here:

Consider 食べる:

> 食べる - I will eat
>
> 食べた - I ate (without proper grammar, "I eated")
>
> 食べている - I am eating

Often 帰る is translated as "to return", but copying the same transformations
from the 食べる case is incorrect:

> 帰る - I will return
>
> 帰った - I returned
>
> 帰っている - [WRONG] I am returning

If we instead translate 帰る as "to be returned" (where "returned" here is
intransitive), we still get proper meanings:

> 帰る - I will be returned
>
> 帰った - I have been returned
>
> 帰っている - [CORRECT] I am returned

So, I wondered if this was the case that all transitive verbs were
"continuous" and all intransitive verbs were "discontinuous", but this is not
the case: かぶる is transitive and "discontinuous", and 泳ぐ is intransitive and
"continuous":

> かぶる - I will don it
>
> かぶった - I have donned it
>
> かぶっている - I am (being donned) it
>
> 泳ぐ - I will swim
>
> 泳いだ - I have swum
>
> 泳いでいる - I am swimming

So my next question was "is this strictly an English phenomenon?". Rather, am
I fixing a problem that only really exists in English by adding "to be" onto
definitions?

Consider this timeline of 食べる:

[![Timeline of 食べる to 食べた with the arrow labelled
食べている](https://i.stack.imgur.com/C0Ix2.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/C0Ix2.png)

食べた happens _after_ 食べている, that is, 食べている describes the interval before 食べた.

This is not the same of 帰る:

[![Timeline of 帰る and 帰った, with an arrow rightwards of 帰った labelled
帰っている](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PARIv.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PARIv.png)

帰っている describes the interval _after_ 帰った. So, this is not strictly an English
phenomenon to my understanding.

So, is there a name for categories A and B? Especially a name for them in
Japanese?

| A | B  
---|---|---  
Transitive | 食べる | かぶる  
Intransitive | 泳ぐ | 帰る




The Japanese terms you are looking for are 継続動詞 and 瞬間動詞. 継続動詞 refers to verbs
whose -teiru forms _typically_ refer to progressive actions, whereas 瞬間動詞
refers to verbs whose -teiru forms _typically_ refer to resultant states. 瞬間動詞
is often called a _punctual verb_ or an _(instant-)state-change verb_ in
English.

I said "typically" because the vast majority of verbs actually work in both
ways. 家に帰っている safely means either "I'm on my way home" and "I'm already at
home" depending on the context. The same is true with 食べている and 寝ている (see: [Is
寝る a stative or active
verb?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/57193/5010)). It's perfectly fine
to say もうお昼を食べていますか "Have you already eaten lunch?". There are expressions
which force either progressive or stative readings (e.g.,
[～ているところ](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3122/when-
is-v%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%82%8B-the-continuation-of-action-and-when-is-it-the-
continuation-of-
state#:%7E:text=take%20a%20change%2Din%2Dstate%20verb%20and%20%22zoom%20in%22%20on%20the%20point%20when%20the%20change%20takes%20place%20to%20treat%20it%20like%20a%20continuous%2Daction%20verb)
forces a progressive reading, and 過去に3回～ている forces a stative reading).

As you said, transitivity has nothing to do with the aforementioned
categories. For example, 始める (transitive, "to start something") and 始まる
(intransitive, "something starts") are both nearly always punctual verbs
(会議を始めている "We have (already) started the meeting" vs 会議が始まっている "The meeting
has (already) started").




The Japanese terms you are looking for are 継続動詞 and 瞬間動詞. 継続動詞 refers to verbs
whose -teiru forms _typically_ refer to progressive actions, whereas 瞬間動詞
refers to verbs whose -teiru forms _typically_ refer to resultant states. 瞬間動詞
is often called a _punctual verb_ or an _(instant-)state-change verb_ in
English.

I said "typically" because the vast majority of verbs actually work in both
ways. 家に帰っている safely means either "I'm on my way home" and "I'm already at
home" depending on the context. The same is true with 食べている and 寝ている (see: [Is
寝る a stative or active
verb?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/57193/5010)). It's perfectly fine
to say もうお昼を食べていますか "Have you already eaten lunch?". There are expressions
which force either progressive or stative readings (e.g.,
[～ているところ](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3122/when-
is-v%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%82%8B-the-continuation-of-action-and-when-is-it-the-
continuation-of-
state#:%7E:text=take%20a%20change%2Din%2Dstate%20verb%20and%20%22zoom%20in%22%20on%20the%20point%20when%20the%20change%20takes%20place%20to%20treat%20it%20like%20a%20continuous%2Daction%20verb)
forces a progressive reading, and 過去に3回～ている forces a stative reading).

As you said, transitivity has nothing to do with the aforementioned
categories. For example, 始める (transitive, "to start something") and 始まる
(intransitive, "something starts") are both nearly always punctual verbs
(会議を始めている "We have (already) started the meeting" vs 会議が始まっている "The meeting
has (already) started").

