Shape and Position of Section Headers in Characters
In the examples above, five of the six characters have the section header on the left side (姐, 媽, 她, 好 and 姓) but it appears at the bottom in 妾. There is no fixed rule about where a section header can go in a character – it may appear in any position in a character. However, there is one pair of section headers that have the same shape, but are indexed as different section headers depending on where they appear in the character: 阝 (the abbreviated section header form of 邑 yì "city" as in 都 dū "metropolis", is always on the right side of characters), while 阝 (the abbreviated section header form of 阜 fù "mound, hill" as in 陸 lù "land"), is always on the left.
In writing, many components (including ones used as section headers) are distorted or change in form in order to fit into a block with other components. They may be narrowed, shortened, or may have different shapes entirely. Changes in shape, rather than simple distortion, may result in a reduction in the number of strokes used to write it. In some cases, these written forms may have several variants. The actual shape of the component when it is used in a character can depend on its placement with respect to the other elements in the character. In the image to the right, the color blue is used for "irregular" forms.
Some of the most important variant written forms (except for ⻏ → 邑 and ⻖ → 阜 which have already been discussed):
- 刀 "knife" → 刂 when placed to the right of other elements:
- examples: 分, 召 ~ 刖
- counter-example: 切
- 人 "man" → 亻 on the left:
- 囚, 仄, 坐 ~ 他
- 心 "heart" → 忄 on the left:
- 杺, 您, 恭* ~ 快
- 手 "hand" → 扌 on the left:
- 杽, 拏, 掱 ~ 扡
- counter-examples: 掰, 拜
- 水 "water" → 氵 on the left:
- 汆, 呇, 沊 ~ 池
- counter-example: 沝
- 火 "fire" → 灬 at the bottom:
- 伙, 秋, 灱 ~ 黑
- counter-example: 災
- 犬 "dog" → 犭 on the left:
- 伏, 状 ~ 狙
- 目 "eye":
- 見, 盲, 眺
The character simplification adopted in the People's Republic of China and elsewhere has modified a number of components, including those used as section headers. This has created a number of new section header forms. For instance, 食 is written 飠 when it forms a part of other traditional characters, but is written 饣 in simplified characters.
Read more about this topic: Section Headers Of A Chinese Dictionary
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...
The pitcher cries for water to carry
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“Thus we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)