grammar - What is the difference between 'The carpet lies on the floor.' and 'The carpet is lying on the floor.'?

There are two sentences,

1. The carpet lies on the floor.


2. The carpet is lying on the floor.

What is the difference between the two sentences? And under what situation should we use 'present progressive' with a stative verb?

Answer

In general, you won't go wrong if you use simple present with general truths:

A carpet covers a floor.

and use the progressive with particular situations:

She couldn't see if there was hardwood beneath it because the carpet was completely covering the floor.

Here, the progressive/continuous contributes to the idea that the floor covering was uninterrupted, that is, there were no sections of bare floor.