Adjectives

Klingon does not have adjectives as a separate class of words; instead, it has verbs which mean things such as "be handsome", "be smart", or "be big".

A sentence such as val torgh "Torg is smart" has the same grammar (verb + subject) as yaj torgh "Torg understands", even though one sentence has an adjective in English and the other an active verb.

Note that the English translation includes the connecting word "is" when you use an adjective, but the Klingon translation just connects the subject directly to the verb without using any sort of connecting word. As verbs, these Klingon words already contain the "is" in their definitions like "be smart".

If, on the other hand, such a verb is used after a noun, it acts like an attributive adjective: for example, from Duj "a ship" and tIn "big", we can make Duj tIn "a big ship", and from qach "a building" and 'IH "beautiful", we can make qach 'IH "a beautiful building".

This can't be interpreted as object + verb word order, because such verbs can't take an object — they can't mean "it bigs the ship" or "it beautifuls the building".

Compare again:
tIn Duj "the ship is big"
Duj tIn "the big ship"
'IH qach "the building is beautiful"
qach 'IH "the beautiful building"