Talk:Section headers of a Chinese dictionary

Examples for 目 header

Two of the examples for the 目 header are incorrect. The character 助 ('assist') is listed in both Kangxi and Shuowen under header 力 ('force'), which is the semantic component. Furthermore, the phonetic is 且 (grammatical particle, 'but'), not 目.

Similarly 曼 ('drawn out, prolonged') does not have the 目 component either. It is listed in Kangxi under the (non-semantic) header 曰 and in Shuowen under the semantic header 又 ('[right] hand'), with 冒 ('headgear') as the phonetic. (It is worth noting, however that 冒 had 目 as a component of an ideogrammic compound, i.e. a hat goes over the eyes. Still, it is not the best example.)

I don't have the capability to change the image, so I hope others can assist in that regard. Ymwang42 (talk) 09:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Image

The caption for the first image of this article says that the character pictured means mother, but the table located at Chinese_character_classification#Pictograms seems to indicate that this character means horse; I don't speak or read Chinese, but when comparing it to the table, it seems that this caption may be in error (or perhaps the table is in error, but at first glance to an uninformed observer it seems more likely that the caption on this page is incorrect). Anyway, since I'm not familiar with the language or writing system, I'm not going to change it based on my own hunch, but I thought I'd bring it up here at least. G-my (talk) 13:37, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The character pictured means mother. You are right that the right-hand side of the character means horse, it is the phonetic part of the whole character. In Chinese, mother and horse both pronounces ma, but with different tones. wshun (talk) 11:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

A Chinese and English dictionary, arranged according to radicals and sub-radicals

http://books.google.com/books?id=f6VBAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Rajmaan (talk) 18:30, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Replacement of sample characters; Lost image(s)?

1) Presenting 曼（= 冒+又）creates undue complications. I'm replacing it with a more obvious one, 眺. I understand the desire to work 曼 in there somehow, the thinking being that it shows 目 in a form different from the usual one. However, in 冒, which has to be dragged into the discussion, the 目 element is the phonetic indicator, not the semantic indicator, confusing the typical association between a compound character's semantic element and the section header to which the compound is assigned. (Dictionaries may choose to list 冒 under section header 目, but that's a separate issue.)

2) Graphic change has muddled the 犬 element in 突, making it a possible source of confusion for readers ("Hey, that isn't 犬. It's 大"). I'm replacing it with 状.

3) There are currently two "clarification needed tags" in the Shape and position of section headers in characters section. Each of the two sentences refers to an image (images?) no longer displaying, at least as far as I can see. If someone can bring the image(s) back into the article, allowing the two sentences to make sense, that would be great. If not, I propose to eliminate the sentences. Lawrence J. Howell (talk) 01:07, 28 May 2013 (UTC)