彼が生きていることを確かめるすべはなかった。

he; him; his; boyfriend

indicates sentence subject (occasionally object); indicates possessive (esp. in literary expressions); but; however; still; and

to live; to exist; to make a living; to subsist; to be in effect; to be in use; to function; to come to life; to be enlivened; to be safe (in baseball, go, etc.)

thing; matter; incident; occurrence; event; something serious; trouble; crisis; circumstances; situation; state of affairs; work; business; affair; after an inflectable word, creates a noun phrase indicating something the speaker does not feel close to; nominalizing suffix; pretending to ...; playing make-believe ...; alias; aka; nickname; alternative name; also known as

indicates direct object of action; indicates subject of causative expression; indicates an area traversed; indicates time (period) over which action takes place; indicates point of departure or separation of action; indicates object of desire, like, hate, etc.

to ascertain; to check; to make sure

way; method; means

topic marker particle; indicates contrast with another option (stated or unstated); adds emphasis

nonexistent; not being (there); unpossessed; unowned; not had; unique; indicates negation, inexperience, unnecessariness or impossibility; not ...; to not be...; to have not ...