This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
句
In brief: speaking reasonably and with substance
Common reading
The manuscript gives no common reading for this character, so none is given here.
Design reading
Laid over the nine palaces, 句: the enclosing top 勹 occupies three corner positions. The upper-left left-falling stroke (from inner to outer: a person opens the mouth to speak and expresses outward) joins 一 (when one speaks one must be reasonable and in accord with the Dao); the turn at the upper right (one’s words have substance; the principles spoken have effect); and the hook at the lower right (linking what comes before and after: the sentence ends and moves on to another meaning).
Related characters
About this entry
This entry is taken from the edited manuscript of LI Xutong’s Exploring the Design Mysteries of Chinese Characters. The common reading follows traditional philology, the Shuowen Jiezi and other classics, and modern dictionaries; the design reading recovers the rationale of the character’s formation from the meanings of its strokes, the pairing of yin and yang, and the nine-palace layout, following the New Six Scripts. The premise of the design reading, that the generative mechanism of Chinese characters was designed, is an axiom of this system and differs from the evolutionary account usual in philology; the two readings are kept apart, as surface and depth.