Breakdown of Ни один удар не проходил без того, чтобы шар не отскакивал от борта.
не
not
один
one
тот
that
от
from
без
without
чтобы
in order to
проходить
to pass
ни
neither / nor
борт
board
шар
ball (solid, sphere)
удар
stroke (hit, impact)
отскакивать
to bounce off
Questions & Answers about Ни один удар не проходил без того, чтобы шар не отскакивал от борта.
Why is there a не before отскакивал when the English translation says 'without the ball bouncing'?
This is the core of the без того, чтобы не structure. This construction requires an extra, untranslated не before the verb. While it might literally feel like 'without it being that the ball didn't bounce,' it simply translates to 'without the ball bouncing.'
Why is отскакивал in the past tense instead of the infinitive?
The standard rule for чтобы applies here: because the subject of the main clause (удар, the stroke) is different from the subject of the subordinate clause (шар, the ball), you must use the past tense. If the same subject were performing both actions, you would use an infinitive.
Why are the verbs проходил and отскакивал both in the imperfective aspect?
The imperfective aspect is used here because the sentence describes a repeated, habitual pattern in the past (every time a stroke was made, the ball bounced). If it were describing one specific stroke during one specific turn, it would use the perfective verbs прошел and отскочил.
This sentence has four negative-sounding words (ни, не, без, не). How do they not cancel each other out to make a positive?
Unlike in English, Russian negatives stack for grammatical agreement rather than canceling out mathematically. Ни один requires the first не to form a standard double negative. Then, the phrase без того, чтобы не adds its own grammatically required не. They work in two separate, required grammatical pairs.
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