Breakdown of Что ни кричит публика, комик не уходит со сцены.
не
not
что
what
уходить
to leave (on foot)
кричать
to shout
сцена
stage
с
off / down from (a surface)
ни
no matter (concessive particle)
комик
comedian
публика
audience
Questions & Answers about Что ни кричит публика, комик не уходит со сцены.
The current lesson is about несмотря на (despite), but it's not in this sentence. How does this fit?
This sentence uses a related concessive clause (что ни - whatever) to express the exact same "despite" idea. You could easily rewrite the first half using the lesson's target grammar by adding то, что to bridge the preposition and the verb: Несмотря на то, что кричит публика, комик не уходит... (Despite what the audience is shouting...).
Does the ни in что ни кричит make the action negative?
Not at all! When you combine a question word (like кто, что, где) with the particle ни, it creates the meaning of "no matter [who/what/where]" or the English suffix "-ever". So, что ни кричит simply means "whatever they shout" or "no matter what they shout".
Could I use не instead of ни here?
No, because it would completely change the meaning. If you wrote что не кричит публика, it becomes a simple negative relative clause: "what the audience is not shouting". The particle ни is specifically required to trigger the "whatever" meaning.
Why is it со сцены instead of из сцены?
This goes back to basic preposition pairs. You go onto a stage using на сцену and perform on it using на сцене. The opposite of на (on/onto) is always с (off/from) + Genitive case. Additionally, because сцена starts with a cluster of consonants, we use the spelling со instead of с to make it easier to pronounce.
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