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LeGion12359 Posted 11 years ago
Grammar

Simple Grammar

As I knew a little Russian, I had no difficulty making myself understood.
understood=adjective
making=gerund (not present participle)
Could you please tell me whether I am correct?
  

Top answer

LeGion12359 making=gerund (not present participle) Making is not a gerund. The non-finite clause (making myself understood) modifies "difficulty" which is a noun. Modern grammarians use the term "complement" rather than modify.

— AlpheccaStars

  • LeGion12359 making=gerund (not present participle) Making is not a gerund.
  • The non-finite clause (making myself understood) modifies "difficulty" which is a noun.
  • Modern grammarians use the term "complement" rather than modify.
  • LeGion12359 understood=adjective It's the past participle.
  • This is the "causative passive" pattern.
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6 Answers
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LeGion12359making=gerund (not present participle)
Making is not a gerund. The non-finite clause (making myself understood) modifies "difficulty" which is a noun. Modern grammarians use the term "complement" rather than modify.
LeGion12359understood=adjective
It's the past participle. This is the "causative passive"
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AlpheccaStarsMaking is not a gerund.
I must admit, I thought it was a gerund. My reading was that "making myself understood" was a noun phrase (similar to e.g. "making myself understood was not a problem"), and that the whole was to be interpreted as something like "no difficulty in/with making myself understood".
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GPY"no difficulty in/with making myself understood".
My reasoning was that the prepositional phrase in the alternate version, "in making myself understood," described "difficulty" so it was a complement or modifier.
If you use the preposition, then "making..." would be the object / complement of the preposition, thus a NP (non-finite noun clause, or gerund
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AlpheccaStarsdifferent ways of looking at these
Agreed. You can even put these in the category of catenative constructions that take an -ing form.

have trouble / have difficulty / have problems / spend time / spend [an hour / a day / a week/ ...] ---ING

Under this interpretation they go with more familiar catenatives like [see some
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AlpheccaStarsLeGion12359making=gerund (not present participle)Making is not a gerund. The non-finite clause (making myself understood) modifies "difficulty" which is a noun. Modern grammarians use the term "complement" rather than modify.LeGion12359understood=adjective It's the past participle. This is the "causative passive" pattern.The causative verbs are let, have, and
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LeGion12359Alright .By the way, what about this:I can't stand being stuck in traffic jams?being=gerund ( I am sure)
I agree.
LeGion12359stuck=?
In normal interpretation, adjective. The passive verbal interpretation is also possible, but the meaning would be unusual (implies someone or something placed or inserted
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