Breakdown of آنان داشتند دربارهی پیمان صلح مذاکره میکردند.
آنانânân
those people
داشتنdâshtan
to have
دربارهdarbâre
about / concerning
مذاکره کردنmozâkere kardan
to negotiate
Questions & Answers about آنان داشتند دربارهی پیمان صلح مذاکره میکردند.
Why use آنان instead of آنها for "those people"?
آنان is a formal demonstrative pronoun used exclusively for people (animate nouns). While آنها is common in everyday speech and can refer to both people and things, آنان elevates the formality of the sentence. This higher register fits perfectly when discussing serious, formal topics like a peace treaty.
How is the past continuous tense "were negotiating" formed here?
Farsi forms the past continuous by taking the conjugated past tense of داشتن (to have) and pairing it with the past continuous form of the main verb. Here, داشتند acts as the helping verb, and مذاکره میکردند is the main verb.
Is it mandatory to split داشتند and مذاکره میکردند with the rest of the sentence?
It is not strictly mandatory to split them, but it is by far the most natural word order. Farsi strongly prefers placing the main verb at the very end of the clause. Placing the prepositional phrase (دربارهی پیمان صلح) between the auxiliary verb (داشتند) and the main verb (مذاکره میکردند) is standard practice.
Why is there a ی added to the end of درباره (about)?
The preposition درباره requires an ezâfe (the linking vowel) to connect it to its object, پیمان (treaty). Because درباره ends in a silent he (ه), the ezâfe must be written with the letter to bridge the vowel sounds, creating .