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Are there any languages, where a construction to be + an impersonal verb form (participle, gerund, verbal noun or such) connotes a habitual or generic meaning (i.e. the opposite of what English does)?

Small point: it can have habitual uses in English too, you know. "These days I'm following the football results more closely" indicates a habitual activity, for instance.

I was actually going to mention instances like those as well. I can't think of a language off the top of my head, but I know I've read of constructions like this.

And it's not at all out of the realm of possibility. I'd actually be surprised if it didn't occur.

In Welsh it can have either impersonal or habitual meaning, although in most dialects a separate form of 'to be' (the habitual/future) is used, so that might not count. Still, the synthetic form of 'to be' used in English is habitual on its own, isn't it?

You could say that Modern Hebrew does. It uses the past tense of the verb "be", followed by the present tense form (which works like a participle), and it means a past tense habitual:

הייתי רואה hayiti ro'e "I-was seeing" = I used to see
היו הולכים hayu holkhim "they-were going" = they used to go

YngNghymru wrote:In Welsh it can have either impersonal or habitual meaning, although in most dialects a separate form of 'to be' (the habitual/future) is used, so that might not count.

This is exactly what I thought of, e.g. Tua hanner awr wedi saith fydda i'n codi yn y bore. "I get up around half seven every morning.[/i] I don't see why it wouldn't count--you have a form of "be" (bydda) followed by a link particle (yn) and then the verb-noun (codi).

The same sort of construction exists in Irish, e.g. Bím ag ól leanna duibh. "I drink stout." But it's less common because Irish has a synthetic future tense, so the synthetic present commonly has habitual meaning. (In Welsh, the historic synthetic present is now used pretty much exclusively with future meaning.)

I'm not sure what you'd make of the Hiberno-English equivalent, i.e. "I do be drinking stout". You've got a be verb in there, but it's not the only auxiliary in this construction.

YngNghymru wrote:In Welsh it can have either impersonal or habitual meaning, although in most dialects a separate form of 'to be' (the habitual/future) is used, so that might not count.

I understand these are the basic or only meanings? I'm not looking just for a present tense.

Thanks everyone for the examples so far.

AFAICT, the construction is exclusively "progressive" in English, it's only that that progressing moment has gotten increasingly large in most dialects. There's (at least IMD) still a distinction between:

-These days I follow the football results more closely.
-These days I'm following the football results more closely.

The former creates the impression of a repeated (not sustained) activity over the course of "these days". In contrast, the second suggests that the following of the football results is a continuous activity sustained over the whole of "these days". It's still "progressive", but it's being applied more broadly.

Xiądz Faust wrote:I understand these are the basic or only meanings? I'm not looking just for a present tense.

Not sure quite what you mean. Basically the present tense (habitual or otherwise) is typically formed with an auxiliary verb, 'to be', and a verbnoun (the difference between a verbnoun and a participle is basically unimportant for this discussion, and we will assume for the purposes of this that the verbnoun, in this use, is always preceded by a meaningless particle 'yn' - it's obviously more complicated than that, but mostly irrelevant). You either have the (otherwise regular) future forms with the stem bydd-, or the rather irregular present forms:

Dw i'n smocio.
be.1ps.PRES I PART smoke_VN
I am smoking.

Bydda i'n smocio.
be_1ps.FUT I PART smoke_VN
I will be smoking.

These forms don't match up exactly to their standard English counterparts - 'bydd-' is used rather more than 'will be' in English - but the former is basically continuous present and the latter continuous future. However, the former is also used for gnomic/stative present, and the latter for habitual present:

Dw i'n smocio.
be.1ps.PRES I PART smoke_VN
I smoke.

(also Dw i'n hoffi, 'I like' etc)

Bydda i'n smocio.
be_1ps.FUT I PART smoke_VN
I smoke (regularly).

Bydd y plant yn mynd i'r ysgol bob dydd.
be_3ps.FUT DEF children PART go_VN to DEF school every day
The children go to school every day.