English Translation
If they hadn’t been in the wrong, you wouldn’t have picked a fight.
I’m wondering, shouldn’t “de no ser que” be followed by the subjunctive (estuvieran)?
Si ellos no hubieran estado equivocados, tú no habrías empezado una pelea. If they hadn’t been wrong, you wouldn’t have started a fight.
Si no fuera porque ellos estaban equivocados, tú no habrías empezado una pelea. They were wrong, otherwise you wouldn’t have started a fight.
‘De no ser que’ isn’t something I’d use, so I can’t really answer your question :-/
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I understand. It doesn’t have entries in Wiktionary or SpanishDict, so it’s probably quite rare.
This sentence jumped out at me in the forum because I’ve always heard the phrase a (not de) no ser que used to mean “unless.” And yes, it’s usually (if not always) followed by the subjunctive. That phrase does have a SpanishDict entry (haven’t checked Wiktionary) which gives one example in which it’s followed by the indicative, but it’s a weird sentence (from something called Paracrawl) that makes no sense to me.
Guessing a no ser que is probably an americanismo since Daniel didn’t think of it.
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Another common (possibly more common) phrase that could replace a no ser que is a menos que.
Both ‘a no ser que’ or ‘a menos que’ are used in Spain and they require the subjunctive as you say. But the nuance is a bit off for this sentence, it sounds as if you were expecting them to be wrong and reacting to that, instead of just reacting. Kind of hard to explain.
There is also ‘de no +inf’, like ‘De no haber estado equivocados…’ or even ‘De no ser porque estaban equivocados…’ these sound more or less fine to me. It’s just ‘de no ser que’ that I find strange…
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True, the sentence would still be odd even if De were replaced with A. I hadn’t really parsed it out before commenting as I was so struck by the oddness of its beginning, but the sentences (& their translations) you suggested in your first reply make much more sense.
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Thanks, guys, for your valuable insights!