I’ve run into a similar issue, and I’m pretty sure what’s going on is your use of “it” in the action name. From my (admittedly hazy) understanding, “it” in an action name flags to Inform that it applies to two things, with the “it” helping it out on knowing where the preposition goes (like, “putting it on” enables actions of the form PUT COIN ON DESK). So maybe try renaming your action to just “talking to” and see if that makes things work?
Edit: yeah, I had pretty much the exact same issue a couple months back.