Indefinite Present and Immediate Present

This post explores the usage of the indefinite present and immediate present tenses in the Gilkesh language, with a digression on the usages of the corresponding tenses in English.

The usage of the indefinite present and immediate present tenses closely parallels the so-called "simple present" and "present progressive" in English. (I am of the opinion, which is shared by some grammarians, that the term "present tense" is a misnomer as it is usually applied to English grammar, for reasons that will become clear.) Here I will use the terms "indefinite present" and "immediate present" to refer to both the English and Gilkesh tenses.

The indefinite present in Gilkesh is marked by the null suffix, i.e. none; it's formed by adding the personal suffix, and plural marker if applicable, to the verb root:

gan + mi = ganmi (I go)

Like the equivalent English tense, the indefinite present refers to action whose time of occurrence is habitual, continuous, indefinite, or unspecified.

Nangimi kasha. (I drink beer [on a regular basis].)
Durmi Ingliskaye. (I speak English.)
Cay-ganmi marchara, ferdimi qora. (When I go to the store, I take money.)

We always use the indefinite present (rather than the immediate present) in antecedent clauses like "When I go to the store ..." because the time of action of the event in the clause itself is indefinite; the time of action of the consequent clause depends on it.

In English, we normally say "When I go to the store ..." (for an action contemplated in the future) but "When I went to the store ..." (for an event that happened in the past). This is because the time of the past event is definite, but the time of the future event is not. Non-native English speakers will sometimes use the future tense for an action contemplated in the future, as in, "When I will go to the store, I will buy some bread," but native speakers almost never do this.

The immediate present is formed by adding the vowel -e after the personal suffix (followed by the plural marker as applicable).

gan + mi + e = ganmie (I am going.)

We use the immediate present to indicate action that is actually happening right now:

Frimbimiem kasha. (We're drinking beer. [Want to join us?])
Durmie Gilkeshkaye. (I am speaking Gilkesh [at this moment].)
Ganmie marchara. (I'm on my way to the store. [Can I get you something?])

Notice that in English, we never use the immediate present (present progressive) for any of the usages served by the indefinite present (simple present). For example, in locutions like "We say it this way, and we don't say it that way," what's being discussed is the normal and usual way of saying something, i.e. habitual and continuous action. Or consider the following examples:

I speak English.
I speak French.

Both of these utterances, voiced in the English language, make sense, because they may refer to the speaker's capability or habitual use of the specified language. Now contrast these with the following:

I am speaking English.
*I am speaking French.

The first statement makes sense. The second one doesn't; that's why I've marked it with the asterisk that means "this isn't a normal construction". You can say "I speak French" and you may mean that you learned French in school, or that you come from a French-speaking family, or that you like to speak French to impress your friends; but if you walk up to somebody and say "I am speaking French", they are going to look at you funny and tell you "It sure sounds like English to me."