In the “宀” radical of Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字): “家，凥也。从宀，豭省聲。𠖔，古文 家.” Duan Yucai believed that, the character “家” (jia) is composed of the radicals “宀” and “豕”, and should be classified under the radical “豕” instead of “宀”. The so-called “豭省聲” mentioned by Xu Shen is baseless. Based on the research of scholars in the Qing Dynasty, as well as the evidence from oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions, it can be concluded that “豭” is a newly created character, and its ancient form should be “𢑓”, which is “豕” with an additional semantic stroke indicating a male pig. The original intention of “豭省聲” should be to omit the character form of “叚” while preserve the pronunciation of “叚”. This takes into account both the ideographic character “家” derived from “ (𢑓)” and the phonetic-semantic character “家” derived from “ (豭)”. Duan Yucai proposed the concepts of “the original meaning of character creation” and “the original sense of character usage” to distinguish between the original meaning and the extended borrowed meaning, which is the value of his theory.

《說文解字》：“家，凥也。从宀，豭省聲。𠖔，古文家。”段玉裁認為此字 从宀豕，當入豕部，“豭省聲”乃曲說。今據清人之發現，及以甲骨、金文作印證，可 知“豭”乃後起字，其古文本字為“𢑓”，即豕加意符表示牡豕。許慎“豭省聲”意為“省叚 形，存叚聲”，兼顧从(𢑓)的會意字，以及演變為(豭)的形聲字。段玉裁提出“造字之本 意”、“用字之本義”，用来分辨本義與引申假借義，是其說價值所在

1. Explanation and Questions by Duan Yucai
2. Supplementary Explanation of Duan Yucai’s Views by Scholars in theQing Dynasty
    2.1. The character “𧰲”
    2.2. The character “𢑓”
    2.3. The character “亥”
3. Clues provided by unearthed materials
    3.1. The character “豕”
    3.2. The character “豭”
    3.3 The character “家”
4. Conclusion
    4.1. Reinterpretation of the character “家” in Shuowen Jiezi
    4.2. Re-examining the intention of Duan Yucai
References
中文摘要

• Li WANG(Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Hong Kong, China) | 王利 (香港樹仁大學)