Breakdown of Büyükelçi, antlaşmayı imzaladıklarına dair bir bildiri okudu.
bir
a / an
okumak
to read
imzalamak
to sign
dair
regarding, concerning
Questions & Answers about Büyükelçi, antlaşmayı imzaladıklarına dair bir bildiri okudu.
How exactly does imzaladıklarına dair translate to 'concerning the fact that they signed'?
Let's break it down! The verb root is imzala- (to sign). We add the factive suffix -dık to turn it into a noun clause ("the fact of signing"). Next comes the 3rd person plural possessive -ları ("their"). Finally, because the postposition dair (concerning/about) always requires the dative case, we add the buffer -n- and the dative -a. This gives us imzala-dık-ları-n-a dair.
Could I use hakkında instead of dair in this sentence?
Yes, you can, but the grammar connecting it to the clause changes. The postposition dair requires the preceding word to be in the dative case (imzaladıklarına). The postposition hakkında, however, simply follows the possessive ending without needing the dative. So, if you swapped them, the phrase would become imzaladıkları hakkında.
How do we know it's 'they' who signed the treaty and not the ambassador himself?
The possessive ending attached to the -dık clause tells us who performed that specific action. Here, we have -ları in imzaladıklarına, which is the "their" ending. If the ambassador alone had signed it, the sentence would use the 3rd person singular possessive -ı instead, resulting in imzaladığına dair (concerning his/her having signed).
Why does antlaşma take the accusative ending -yı if it's trapped inside a complement clause?