Breakdown of Yayınevi, hakkında konuştuğumuz romanı yayımladı.
konuşmak
to speak / to talk
roman
novel
yayımlamak
to publish
hakkında
about, concerning
Questions & Answers about Yayınevi, hakkında konuştuğumuz romanı yayımladı.
How does the phrase "hakkında konuştuğumuz romanı" translate to "the novel about which we talked"?
In English, we say 'the novel about which we talked' or 'the novel we talked about'. Turkish builds this by saying 'about-it our-talked novel'. Hakkında acts as 'about it' (referring back to the novel), and konuştuğumuz is the -dık relative participle with the 'we' possessive ending (-umuz). These modifier words sit directly in front of the noun they describe (romanı).
Since 'we' did the talking, why do we use "hakkında" instead of "hakkımızda"?
The postposition takes the possessive ending of the noun it refers to, not the subject doing the action. Because we talked about the novel (a third-person object), we use hakkında (about it). The 'we' part is completely handled by the ending on the verb: konuştuğumuz. If you used hakkımızda, the phrase hakkımızda konuştuğumuz roman would mean 'the novel in which we talked about ourselves'!
Why does "roman" take the accusative case ending to become "romanı"?
Because the novel is a specific direct object of the main verb yayımladı (published). Any noun that is defined by a relative clause (like 'the one we talked about') points to a highly specific item. Therefore, it requires the specific accusative case -ı.
I know the word for a publication is "yayın". Why is the verb spelled "yayımladı" with an 'm'?