To restate the question: To identify any Chinese character by means of
hemigrams, does it matter how the hemigrams are positioned relative to each
other?

Except for a handful of characters, like wang4 (forget) and mang2 (busy), I
didn't think it did. But I wasn't sure.

Thomas Chan added:

>> [TC] I don't have an answer to this, although I can think of more
>> examples of exceptions, such as jie2, composed of ba1 U+5DF4 over shan1
>> U+5C71, Hanyu Da Zidian 10765.11, which is 'the place where a mountain
>> turns', among three other meanings; vs. ba1, composed of shan1 U+5C71
>> over ba1 U+5DF4, Hanyu Da Zidian 10765.12, which is part of a
>> placename.

> [TC] On the sci.lang newsgroup, someone gave an even better answer[1] to
> Jon Babcock's query. U+54E1 and U+5504, U+6688 and U+6689, and U+4F1A
> and U+4F1D were given as three examples where: 1) the components were
> the same, but 2) meanings different, as well as 3) writing sequence was
> identical--the third restriction not among the criteria that Jon asked
> for, nor present in my own examples. (I don't completely agree with the
> third pair, though.)

Please correct me, but it would seem that U+54E1 and U+5504 don't quite count,
if their hemigrams are correctly identified, since yuan, U+54E1, is a huiyi
graph, composed of 'oral' (Kangxi #30) over 'cowrie' (Kangxi #154) whereas
bai, U+5504, is a xiesheng graph, composed of a 'oral' to the left of a
shortened form (brachymorph) of 'tripod' (Kangxi #206), in other words they
have nothing in common except for the classifier 'oral'.

Likewise, U+4F1A and U+4F1D are composed of totally different hemigrams, one
of which (the phonetic in zhuan4, U+4F1D), appears to be a brachymorph of the
traditional form, as found in U+50B3. But perhaps this analysis is incorrect.

Of the examples given so far, only yun24 U+6688 and hui1 U+6689 may turn out
to pose a problem and may give us the best example so far of a case where
position alone matters.

If the brachymorphic (shortened) forms of hemigrams were introduced as an
additional, usually optional, attribute of the hemigram notation, then my
original example, wang4 (forget) and mang2 (busy), would also pose no problem.

I don't quite get the point with 'goose', U+9D5D. Is there a difference in
meaning when 'avian' (Kangxi #196) is coronary, or aristeric or
dextral?

A more serious challenge ... but I'm sure there will be more ... to the idea
of a hemigramic notation for *any* Chinese characters may be trying to deal
with characters such as the one Thomas Chan mentioned at URL,

http://member.nifty.ne.jp/Gat_Tin/kanji/sinji.htm

5th down from the top. I'm still trying to get my mind around this one.

Jon

--
Jon Babcock <jon@...>