Thus, akhwaf (“more fearsome”) here derives from khīfa (“he was feared”), hence makhūf (“feared”), not from khāfa (“he feared”). Likewise, their expression mā ajanna Zaydan (“How mad Zayd is!”) derives from junna (“he was afflicted with madness”), hence majnūn (“mad”). This is the position of the Kufan grammarians and those who agree with them.
The Basran grammarians said: All this is irregular and cannot be relied upon. Grammatical rules should not be unsettled by it, and its use must be confined to attested instances.
The Kufan grammarians said: The frequency of these expressions in their speech, both poetry and prose, precludes treating them as irregular. What is irregular departs from their usage and the consistent patterns of their speech, whereas these expressions do not.
They said: As for your assumption that the verb is intransitive and has been transferred to the fa‘ula pattern, this is an arbitrary claim unsupported by evidence. As for your argument based on making a verb transitive by means of hamza, and so forth, the matter is not as you maintain. The hamza in this construction does not serve to make the verb transitive; it merely indicates exclamation and comparison. It is like the alif in fā‘il (the active-participle pattern), the mīm and wāw in maf‘ūl (the passive-participle pattern), and the tā’ used in ifti‘āl (the Form VIII pattern) and in resultative forms. These and similar additions to the triliteral verb indicate the additional meaning conveyed beyond its unaugmented form. This is what calls for the hamza, not making the verb transitive.
They said: The evidence for this is that a verb made transitive by hamza can also be made transitive by a preposition or consonant doubling, as in jalastu bihi and ajlastuhu (both meaning “I made him sit”), qumtu bihi and aqamtuhu (both meaning “I made him stand”), and similar examples. Here, however, nothing else can take the place of hamza, which shows that its function is not merely to make the verb transitive. Moreover, it occurs together with the transitive-making bā’, as in akrim bihi (“How noble he is!”) and ahsin bihi (“How good he is!”), whereas two transitive-making elements are not combined in a single verb.
Furthermore, they say: mā a‘tāhu li-l-darāhim (“How generously he gives dirhams!”) and aksāhu li-l-thiyāb (“How generously he gives clothing!”). This is derived from