[tlhIngan Hol] Does Da necessarily require an object ?

[Jeffrey Clark]

Curious.

I would think that there would be linguistic pressure against things like {jIqIm} and even {jIyaj}.

In English, for example, we drop the object since context implies it (our own form of clipping). But in Klingon I don’t see the point of changing the prefix just because the object is understood. You are understanding something, you are paying attention to something, you are behaving like something… just because the object is not explicitly given doesn’t mean that the transitive quality of the verb goes away, there is a still “something” that the verb is pointing to, even if it is understood.

I’ll accept that canon is canon and reflects how Klingons use the language. That evolution of the language though just seems counterintuitive to me (but may reflect how natural languages do evolve — I’m not a linguist). It seems more likely to me that there would be a (unspoken, perhaps) rule about using no-object prefixes with many transitive verbs that can’t have intransitive meanings.

yInlu’ ‘ej ghojlu’.

—jevreH