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> 誰もが平等に死んで、自分では誰一人救えなかった。 人間なんてそんなものだと諦める **しか** 、目の前の恐怖を **抑えられなかった** 。

My TL:  
Everyone died equally, I could not save anyone.  
I could do nothing other than giving up thinking "Human beings are like that."  
I could not suppress the fear in front of me.

How does しか work in this sentence?  
I think I understand the general meaning of the sentence but I am lost
grammatically.
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2016-03-03T10:45:45.230
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grammar particle-しか
しか before a clause
しか is a postpositional particle and it is always used with ない which means
"negative". And it means "just have to" , "have no choice but", and "have
nothing but" etc.

For example. 彼は英語しか話せない(He can only speak English.), この図書館には日本語の本しかない(This
library has nothing but books written in Japanese.)

I think 人間なんてそんなものだと諦めるしか、目の前の恐怖を抑えられなかった means that I could do nothing other
than giving up by thinking "Human beings are like that." in order to suppress
the fear in front of me.
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2016-03-03T11:26:28.257
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This is an interesting question, since when I read the sentence leading up to
"しか", I expected a "なかった" or "できなかった" to follow. So I think the form
"[verb]しか" here implies that a negation should follow.

The object of the verb "抑えられなかった", however, of course is "目の前の恐怖", and
"諦めるしか抑えられなかった" does not really make sense. So I would have to bet that this
is a stylistic way of saying:

> 諦めるしか、目の前の恐怖を抑える方法がなかった

I must admit, I was a bit confused about the meaning until [@choco's
formulation in
comments](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/32630/%e3%81%97%e3%81%8b-before-
a-clause/32633?noredirect=1#comment65774_32633)
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2016-03-03T11:57:00.230
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I would say this sentence is a bit awkward. This sentence is a lot easier to
understand if it's written like this:

> 人間なんてそんなものだと諦める **ことで** しか、目の前の恐怖を抑えられなかった。  
>  _It was only **by** giving up, thinking "That's how human beings are", that
> I could suppress the fear in front of me._

Compare with these simpler sentences:

  * 練習することで強くなれる。 By practicing, I can become stronger.
  * 練習することでしか強くなれない。 Only by practicing can I become stronger.
  * 練習するしか強くなれない。 (the same as above, but looks a bit weird to me)
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2016-03-03T12:19:01.983
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