# no ha querido continuar hasta que no se limpiara (Perfect Past + Double Negative)



## jeffy8

*El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparencia hasta que no se limpiara la sala.*

I have two grammatical questions about this sentence:

1) Why is the past perfect tense (no ha querido) used here?
2) Is is another example of the Spanish double-negative? If so, how would you say "He didn´t want to continue the press appearance even if [subjunctive trigger] the room was cleaned."?

Any help appreciated. Thanks.


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## Peterdg

1) Why not? Why do you think this is strange?
2) No, no double negation. In the construction "hasta que no", the "no" is expletive and "hasta que no" is equivalent to "hasta que".

EDIT: to illustrate number 2:

If you compare it to English: "hasta que no" could be parafrased as : "as long as the the room *wasn't* cleaned"

and "hasta que" could be parafrased as: "until the room was cleaned".

They both say the same thing; once with a negation and once without the negation.

EDIT2: The reason for the subjunctive is that "hasta que (no)" introduces a temporal adverbial subordinate that refers to the future in relation to the principal clause.


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## Sleptikal

There's no past perfect, it's present perfect negative.

It's used to talk about how long a current situation has existed.


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## Peterdg

Sleptikal said:


> There's no past perfect, it's present perfect negative.


In Spanish, this tense is called "*pretérito* perfecto compuesto", that is "compound *past* perfect" so the original poster is completely right with his terminology.

The "present perfect" does not exist in Spanish. That's terminology of English grammar and the English "present perfect" doesn't have anything to do with the Spanish "pretérito perfecto compuesto" (except perhaps for what concerns the similar morphological construction: i.e. they both are compound tenses).


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## Sleptikal

Interesting.
Spanish terms are way more complex.


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## jeffy8

Thanks for your responses.

@Peterdog
1. I think it´s strange when Spanish use this tense in so many scenarios in which English-speakers would use the simple past tense. I would say: "He didn´t want to continue." "He hasn´t wanted to continue" wouldn´t sound right here in English. I have read that one of it´s uses is to indicate that it is referring to a recent event... Is that the case here?

2. "as long as the the room *wasn't* cleaned" - you mean "as long as the the room *wasn't* clean" here right?


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## Bevj

jeffy8 said:


> 2. "as long as the the room *wasn't* cleaned" - you mean "as long as the the room *wasn't* clean" here right?


I think the correct word is _cleaned_, not _clean_.
I would translate the sentence in a different way: He was not prepared to continue the press conference until the room had been cleaned.
I don't like the use of 'as long as' in this context;  I think it causes confusion.


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## Peterdg

jeffy8 said:


> Thanks for your responses.
> 
> @Peterdog
> 1. I think it´s strange when Spanish in this tense in so many scenarios where English-speakers would use the simple past tense. I would say: "He didn´t want to continue." "He hasn´t wanted to continue" wouldn´t sound right here in English. I have read that one of it´s uses is to indicate that it is referring to a recent event... Is that the case here?


Well, as already said in post #4, the Spanish pretérito perfecto compuesto (ha querido) or the pretérito perfecto simple (quiso) has no link to the English present perfect (hasn't wanted). You should not try to make associations between the two. In Spanish, the past perfect tenses are used to highlight the kernel of what is being said while the past imperfect tense is used to describe scenery. Most of the time, it's how the speaker (writer) inteprets the thing himself that makes him decide to chose one or the other tense.

Now, about why the author used "ha querido" and not "quiso", depends on the origin of the author. If he is Spanish, then it is indeed probable that he used the _compuesto_ instead of the _simple_ because the author still considers the time frame as belonging to the current time period. This is flexible: if e.g. the author is thinking in terms of "this century", then it may well be something of 10 years ago.

If the author is not from Spain, then it really depends where he is from because in Latin America, the compuesto is used for different motives than in Spain (and don't ask me to explain, because I don't know the details of the LA use of the compuesto).



> 2. "as long as the the room *wasn't* cleaned" - you mean "as long as the the room *wasn't* clean" here right?


No, why do you think that? "se limpiara" is a passive voice (pasiva refleja), so I translated it as a passive voice.



Bevj said:


> I don't like the use of 'as long as' in this context; I think it causes confusion.


Neither do I, but I used it to illustrate by anology with English why "hasta que" and "hasta que no" can mean the same thing.


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## jeffy8

So then it´s a double negative or an expletive? 

If it´s an expletive, why is _*hasta que no se limpiara la sal*_*a* and not _*hasta que sí se limpiara la sala*_?


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## Peterdg

jeffy8 said:


> So then it´s a double negative or an expletive?
> 
> If it´s an expletive, why is _*hasta que no se limpiara la sal*_*a* and not _*hasta que sí se limpiara la sala*_?


It's expletive. You *could* also say "_*hasta que sí se limpiara la sala*_"; the latter however, puts more emphasis on the cleaning as if someone had said just before that the room would not be cleaned.

"Expletive" here means that the "no" is optional and doesn't change the meaning whether  you use the "no" or not.

As to why: ... cosas de la lengua.


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## jeffy8

Peterdg said:


> Now, about why the author used "ha querido" and not "quiso", depends on the origin of the author. If he is Spanish, then it is indeed probable that he used the _compuesto_ instead of the _simple_ because the author still considers the time frame as belonging to the current time period. This is flexible: if e.g. the author is thinking in terms of "this century", then it may well be something of 10 years ago.
> 
> If the author is not from Spain, then it really depends where he is from because in Latin America, the compuesto is used for different motives than in Spain (and don't ask me to explain, because I don't know the details of the LA use of the compuesto).



This is very interesting and makes the whole thing begin to make sense.

So if I thought World War 2 was relatively recent I would say "It has ended in 1945." If, however, I thought that England´s only World Cup victory in 1966 was not recent then I would say "England won the World Cup in 1966."

Correct?


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## analect

Peterdg said:


> Well, as already said in post #4, the Spanish pretérito perfecto compuesto (ha querido) or the pretérito perfecto simple (quiso) has no link to the English present perfect (hasn't wanted).



This seems to me too strong a claim. I'm not a linguist and I can't trace the development of the tenses in the two languages, but it seems to me extremely unlikely that both languages coincidentally developed two tenses involving the verb "to have" (one in the present and one in some past tense) plus the past participle. While it is true that the perfect tenses are not used identically in English & Spanish, there are strong similarities in how they are used, and I find it much easier to use the English usages as a rough model and learn where Spanish diverges than to learn the Spanish tenses as though they bore no relation to the English ones.


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## Peterdg

jeffy8 said:


> This is very interesting and makes the whole thing begin to make sense.
> 
> So if I thought World War 2 was relatively recent I would say "It has ended in 1945." If, however, I thought that England´s only World Cup victory in 1966 was not recent then I would say "England won the World Cup in 1966."
> 
> Correct?


It all depends on how you define "recent". If you define it as "close to today", then it is wrong.

You should really see it from the perspective of "belonging to the current time frame or not". "Today", "this week", "this month", "this year", "this spring", "this decade" and "this century" belong to the current time frame because "now" belongs to each of those periods.

"Yesterday", "last month", "last year", etc. do not belong to the current time frame because "now" is not part of it.

The "current time frame" is the environment in which the speaker/author is placing his story; it can either be specified explicitly or it can be implicitly implied.

EDIT: I just saw this post:


analect said:


> This seems to me too strong a claim. I'm not a linguist and I can't trace the development of the tenses in the two languages, but it seems to me extremely unlikely that both languages coincidentally developed two tenses involving the verb "to have" (one in the present and one in some past tense) plus the past participle. While it is true that the perfect tenses are not used identically in English & Spanish, there are strong similarities in how they are used, and I find it much easier to use the English usages as a rough model and learn where Spanish diverges than to learn the Spanish tenses as though they bore no relation to the English ones.


Well, that's dangerous, in my opinion. The example sentence that was provided by the OP is clear evidence of that.


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## Sendro Páez

Please forgive me, Peterdg, but what you wrote in posts #4 and #8 (and even in #10) regarding the Spanish language is... well, a little bit misleading.

Strangely enough, jeffy8 got a couple of not-so-wrong conclusions (post #11) coming from a not-so-right hypothesis provided by you. That made me rethink my impression, of course. But your dismissal (post #13) of analect's sensible reflection (post #12), put me again on my initial tracks. I might be wrong, and I beg your pardon again, even if I'm right, but I think you didn't understand the original sentence.


jeffy8 said:


> *El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparecencia hasta que no se limpiara la sala.*


The sentence isn't easy and I'm fully aware of that because even Bevj, who speaks Spanish wonderfully, failed to capture this prey (all this imho, of course, I might have misunderstood what she wrote in post #7).

The problem here is that we are not given any context. I don't know whether jeffy8 could have told us anything about his source or not, but it would have been useful, if he had done so.

I ask for contexts as wide and colourful as they're possible, anyway, this is what I would get if I had to rely on my experience and those nineteen words to make my guess about the scenario:
1. it's journalistic style;
2. it's a transcipt;
3. the sentence was pronounced during, or right after, the _comparecencia_;
4. the sentence was pronounced in the room.​
Here you are the original source ( http://es.euronews.com/2015/07/20/la-fifa-elegira-presidente-el-16-de-marzo-de-2016/ ). As you can see, by playing the clip, my guesses are not too bad. Trust me I googled the sentence after writing them.




Peterdg said:


> You *could* also say "_*hasta que sí se limpiara la sala*_" [I haven't ever heard anything like this]; the latter however, puts more emphasis on the cleaning [mmm, strange] as if someone had said just before that the room would not be cleaned [stranger still].





jeffy8 said:


> If, however, I thought that England's only World Cup victory in 1966 was not recent then... [What a stimulating idea, putting "England's World Cup win is not recent" in a conditional clause... If water wasn't dry, if universe wasn't small, if white wasn't dark...]


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## analect

So, @Sendro Páez, how would you translate the sentence? 

Also, if I may be permitted to ask an entirely separate question about this sentence: what is the word "aún" doing in between "el" and "president"? Is it acting as some sort of _adjective_ here?


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## Amapolas

analect said:


> So, @Sendro Páez, how would you translate the sentence?
> 
> Also, if I may be permitted to ask an entirely separate question about this sentence: what is the word "aún" doing in between "el" and "president"? Is it acting as some sort of _adjective_ here?



I'm not up to date with current FIFA events, but by the word 'aún' I can imply that his position is/was shaky. He is perhaps on the way of being expelled, or was still president at the time of the event but not any more when the phrase was written.


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## Bevj

Thank you for the compliment, Sendro 
You say 'My guesses aren't too bad' but how would you translate the sentence?
Having read the article (and chuckled!)  I feel that my attempt in post #7 is on the mark.  He was not prepared to continue the press conference until the room had been cleaned (of all the false bank notes).

Analect - Mr. Blatter was still President at the time but was on the point of calling elections (before risking being thrown out). 'Aún' highlights that he was still President _at that time_ - but wouldn't be for much longer.
(As Amapolas has explained).


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## Sendro Páez

Amapolas said:


> He is perhaps on the way of being expelled [or even... fired!!!], or was still president at the time of the event [yes, he was] but not any more when the phrase was written [Noooo! He is the president still!].


That becomes very clear when you read the article: one of the issues covered by the president during his speech was the date on which his successor's election will take place. It's funny, because I clicked on this thread feeling curious about its (for me) mistaken title, but as soon as I read "El aún presidente" I thought that that would be the tricky point over here.


analect said:


> what is the word "aún" doing in between "el" and "president"? Is it acting as some sort of _adjective_ here?


Yes, "aún" is a temporal adverb that has undergone a _metábasis_; it's working as an adjective. I don't know how to translate this effective expression into English and I would really like to hear any try...


analect said:


> how would you translate the sentence?


I have just asked for a translation while my very idea was to avoid being requested to translate the sentence...
The _soon-to-leave-the-position_ president has decided to discontinue his appearance until whenever the room gets cleaned.​
As clumsy as I am in English, I know that my adaptation (not translation) might be completely wrong. Anyway, here you are the details that should be looked after the most (imho):
1. The text is the transcription of a journalistic chronicle. [I think this is the main lesson you, students of Spanish, should get: newspapers' language is not only worse, but different.]
2. Does the present perfect of "want" cause any drama? Let's get rid of it. I think it was the verb, not its tense, what brought troubles by the time of translating.
3. Sentences in negative are usually more difficult to figure out: farewell, negation!
4. The subordinate clause might also be taken as a conditional, but I have taken it as a temporal one.
5. Let's get rid of emphatic words. Learn walking first, running will be next.
6. Subjunctive in Spanish? Sometimes the _-ever_ family is able to do the job.
7. An annoying _pasiva refleja_ on the road? Let's try a causative form in order to dodge it.​


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## jeffy8

Thank you all for your responses.

In English, we would say *the still-president* or *the (still) president*

E.g. "Roosevelt initially adopted the respectful posture that the cheers were for *the (still) president *and declined to acknowledge them." - taken from _*Traitor to his Class*_ by *H.W. Brands*


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## Sendro Páez

[I didn't see any _new-message_ pop-up while I was doing my things]


Bevj said:


> You say 'My guesses aren't too bad' but how would you translate the sentence?
> Having read the article (and chuckled!) I feel that my attempt in post #7 is on the mark. He was not prepared to continue the press conference until the room had been cleaned (of all the false bank notes).


I think that that information is true today, he was ready then, indeed. But your sentence didn't make me feel like we all were already there, which was one of the marks the journalist (poorly) attempted to hit. Why do I say poorly? Let's compare these pair:
- El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparecencia hasta que no se limpiara la sala. [This was pronounced right after the end of the event.]
*- *El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparecencia hasta que no se limpie la sala. [This version is meant to be said during the break. If she wanted to be truly engaging, she should have dared to use this one.]​
Wouldn't it have been clearer if she had used the second one?

Side notes: New word "chuckle" down; compliment? reality.


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## Sendro Páez

jeffy8 said:


> In English, we would say *the still-president* or *the (still) president*


Oh, when I pondered that it looked to me like "the quiet president." Therefore, I skipped it. Sometimes a simple dash can make the difference!


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## Peterdg

Sendro Páez said:


> ...but I think you didn't understand the original sentence.


In what sense did I not understand the sentence?


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## analect

Gracias a todos para explicar el uso de "aún." En realidad, creo que no hay un buen traducción de este uso al ingles. Aunque yo quizás podría entender "the still-president" si lo leyera en contexto, nunca he leído este frase y para mí suena mal. Creo que usaria un cláusula entera en vez de tratar a traducir con una sola palabra. 

On the other hand, "the then-president," is a commonly-used phrase and implies that the person in question was then but is now no longer president. Clearly someone used "the still-president" at some point, so what do i know. But it puts me in mind of still-borns: the president may not only be quiet but dead.


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## analect

I am setting a bad example with my imprecise English. That last clause is better this way: "the president may be not only quiet but dead."


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## SevenDays

jeffy8 said:


> *El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparencia hasta que no se limpiara la sala.*
> 
> I have two grammatical questions about this sentence:
> 
> 1) Why is the past perfect tense (no ha querido) used here?
> 2) Is is another example of the Spanish double-negative? If so, how would you say "He didn´t want to continue the press appearance even if [subjunctive trigger] the room was cleaned."?
> 
> Any help appreciated. Thanks.



Just an observation on the verb use. In Spanish and English, the present tense is commonly used as the tense of narration, as it gives current immediacy to whatever is being described (in this case, what Blatter wouldn't do). Where the two languages diverge is in their approach to _aspect/aspecto_ (how the verb action is _marked_). In Spanish, _the aspecto perfectivo_ ("ha querido") stands in contrast to the _aspecto imperfectivo_ ("quiere"), and in that sense, "no ha querido continuar la comparecencia" makes sense, as _aspect_ marks the verb action as _completed_ at the time of narration. And while "no ha querido" technically is a past perfect tense, it has relevance in the present, the moment of speaking, and so it lives up to this idea that the "present" is the tense of narration. In English, however, aspect is treated differently; the equivalent of "ha querido" ("has wanted") stands in constrast to the progressive "is wanting." Moreover, "want" is a stative verb, and stative verbs don't easily lend themselves to mark perfect and progressive aspects. And so, while we can easily say "no ha querido continuar" and "no quiere continuar", English fights "has wanted" or "is wanting". As a way out, English relies on the simple past (didn't want), which stands in contrast to the simple present (doesn't want), and now both tenses can be used. That is, the caption of a photograph could say "The still-president of FIFA doesn't want to continue the press conference until the room is cleared."

Cheers


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## analect

That is very nicely analyzed, @SevenDays. Thank you.


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## onbalance

I'm still confused. I just don't see why the second "no" is necessary.

*El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparencia hasta que no se limpiara la sala.
*
Doesn't this sentence mean the following?: The president of FIFA did not want to continue his press conference until the room was cleaned?

If so, why do you need the second "no"? That is, why couldn't you just say:

*El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparencia hasta que () se limpiara la sala.*


*
*


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## SevenDays

onbalance said:


> I'm still confused. I just don't see why the second "no" is necessary.
> 
> *El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparencia hasta que no se limpiara la sala.
> *
> Doesn't this sentence mean the following?: The president of FIFA did not want to continue his press conference until the room was cleaned?
> 
> If so, why do you need the second "no"? That is, why couldn't you just say:
> 
> *El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparencia hasta que () se limpiara la sala.*



"No" isn't always an adverb of negation. In certain contexts, it loses its "negation" connotation and assumes the oppositive, an _affirmative sense_. It's what happens in _¿no tendrá hambre el niño?_ where what we expect is a "yes; the child *is* hungry." In our particular case, we have something else at work. With "hasta", what typically happens is that when the main clause expresses a negative (_no ha querido_), we construct "hasta" with "no" to reinforce the negative meaning of the main clause: _no ha querido continuar hasta que no se limpiara la sala_. In its own clause, "no" loses its negative sense, and so we understand that when the room *is* cleaned, the FIFA president will continue with the press conference. Call this use a"no expletivo." And, yes, you can leave this "no" out: _no ha querido continuar hasta que se limpiara la sala_. However, this use of "no" is rather common.

Cheers


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## onbalance

SevenDays said:


> "No" isn't always an adverb of negation. In certain contexts, it loses its "negation" connotation and assumes the oppositive, an _affirmative sense_. It's what happens in _¿no tendrá hambre el niño?_ where what we expect is a "yes; the child *is* hungry." In our particular case, we have something else at work. With "hasta", what typically happens is that when the main clause expresses a negative (_no ha querido_), we construct "hasta" with "no" to reinforce the negative meaning of the main clause: _no ha querido continuar hasta que no se limpiara la sala_. In its own clause, "no" loses its negative sense, and so we understand that when the room *is* cleaned, the FIFA president will continue with the press conference. Call this use a"no expletivo." And, yes, you can leave this "no" out: _no ha querido continuar hasta que se limpiara la sala_. However, this use of "no" is rather common.
> 
> Cheers



Thanks.


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## Sendro Páez

Peterdg said:


> In what sense did I not understand the sentence?


Yes, of course, "os debo una explicación":
Los enlaces a youtube no se permiten sin autorización previa.
Gracias
Bevj
Moderadora
by my first reading of the thread, I found your explanations regarding _pretérito perfecto compuesto_ (posts #2, #4, #8, and #13) rather peculiar. Then, when I went over them all again, to picture your vision as a whole, I realised that you missed many opportunities to answer jeffy8's first question properly. You should have got the idea that the sentence was written down from a TV news broadcasting, which means tricky, unusual language. If you don't give jeffy8 that clarifying notion in your replies, my conclusion is, "probably, Peterdg doesn't understand the sentence."

[What do I mean by "not understanding" a sentence? The perfect example is here ( http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/i-said-i-would-help-you.3046689/ ). You'll find an imbecile named _Seandro Báñez_, or something like that, making an absolute mess out of an inoffensive little sentence. He understood each and every one of the words, but he didn't get for what purpose they all had been brought together.]

Well, I just meant the main clause of the sentence. On the contrary, I found your reasoning on the subordinate clause (posts #2, #8, and #10) very interesting. You taught me a couple of things, indeed. In fact, your analogy (discussed by Bevj in #7 with good reason), tough risky, was vey illustrative for me. I've read many of your contributions around the forum, and most of the times I disagree with you, but I always appreciate your _push-the-questions-to-its-limits_ approach a lot. Dialectical materialism, they say.

By the way, SevenDays's explanations here (#25 and #28) are utterly masterful. ¡Chapó!


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## Peterdg

Sendro Páez said:


> I found your explanations regarding _pretérito perfecto compuesto_ (posts #2, #4, #8, and #13) rather peculiar.


In what sense are they peculiar? This is the most classical explanation on the use of the pretérito perfecto compuesto as usually used in Spain (with the exception for Asturias and Galicia) (and that is not coming from me). Take e.g. the NGLE and you will find the same thing (but in Spanish, of course).

I admit I didn't know the context in which this was said/published, but even knowing the context now, I don't see how that would affect anything of what I have said about the opposition "_pretérito perfecto compuesto/pretérito perfecto simple_".


Sendro Páez said:


> I've read many of your contributions around the forum, and most of the times I disagree with you


You are, of course, welcome to disagree with me, but then please say why and come with counter-examples. It is very easy to say someone is wrong and then just leave it at that. 


Sendro Páez said:


> from a not-so-right hypothesis provided by you


Which hypothesis?

You have, in your lengthy expositions, not given any argument that shows that my explanation was wrong/incomplete or whatever. You just say it's "peculiar" or "not-so-right". So, I'm asking you: what is "peculiar" and what is "not-so-right"?


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## Sleptikal

onbalance said:


> *El aún presidente de la FIFA no ha querido continuar la comparencia hasta que no se limpiara la sala.
> *
> Doesn't this sentence mean the following?: The president of FIFA did not want to continue his press conference until the room was cleaned?


I'd put:
_>> (...) till the room didn't get clean._


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## duvija

And just in case, some of us never use the perfect tense. We really don't care. 
And no, that's not a double negation either.

_El ex-presidente de ... no quiso continuar la bla bla hasta que la sala no estuviera limpia._


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## dipsota

A condition is implicit here, _ unless_ is possible too.


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