Why is lack 欠 assigned a new meaning instead of using the primitives already within it? Because of the primitives and method given in the book, I can't but help see it as a bound up person. I realize person doesn't come till 951, but won't this discrepancy cause problems later? :/

dingomick Wrote:Why is lack 欠 assigned a new meaning instead of using the primitives already within it? Because of the primitives and method given in the book, I can't but help see it as a bound up person. I realize person doesn't come till 951, but won't this discrepancy cause problems later? :/

The thing is though, that 欠 is not assigned a new meaning by Heisig, it's a traditional radical in its own right (かける). This is probably enough reason not to split it up. But in any case, the important characteristic of 勹 is that it is an enclosure, wheras the the first two strokes of 欠 - as much as they look to be an abbreviation of 勹 - do not form an enclosure, and to consider them the same would be troublesome, I think.

you'll see many more primitives that can be broken down into other primitives. It actually helps.
In some cases, even when Heisig didn't do this, I ended up inventing extra 'primitives' of my own to remember some repeated parts better. In other cases I couldn't think of anything good but still would have liked the idea, e.g. the right part of 複 comes to mind.

Not only a primitive, but actually a kanji (and a quite common one at that). I think it's a much better mnemonic as lack or yawn than as "bound up person" (and as Pangolin pointed out, it doesn't actually contain the "bound up" primitive anyway).

Incidentally, the word "yawn" (あくび) can be written as 欠 or 欠伸 (lack stretch). Apparently 欠 derives from a pictograph of someone opening their mouth and it occurs in kanji related to opening one's mouth (e.g. 歌). You can see more about this character (and some cute pictures of furry animals yawning) at this page (Japanese):
http://wpedia.search.goo.ne.jp/search/%A...ind=epedia