The original meaning is not universally agreed upon, but the structural composition is not ambiguous. The earliest form of「叚 「叚」is is comprised of「石 「石」on on the left and「又」on 「又」 on the right.
For reference, samples of「石」:
NotesPlease refer to What is the etymology of the kanji 石? for a more detailed overview of「石」. Key points:
- 「石」was originally a picture of stone chimes.
- 「口」was not present originally, being added as a distinguishing component to mark the name of a region.
- What looks like a cover「厂」in later forms was a graphical reduction of the stone chime shape.
- The two horizontal marks that appear in some forms are decorative (Chinese: 飾筆), and don't contribute to any semantic or phonetic function (decorative marks are also seen in modern forms of many characters like「魚」and「甚」). Later-era transcribed samples of ancient forms (Chinese: 傳抄古文字) of「石」which include these marks are:
Afterwards,「爪」or「刀」appeared on 「刀」 was added to the top-right.
For reference,「爪」and「刀」were respectively
The modern form of「叚 「叚」should should be seen as composed from「石 「石」 (left, inherited from a form with decorative marks and no「口 「口」 ),「刀 「刀」 (top right), and「又 「又」 (bottom right).
References:
- 林義光《文源》
- 何琳儀《說文準聲首輯佚》
- 季旭昇《說文新證》
- 小學堂