There are multiple ways to decompose Chinese characters:
Decomposed into the different... |
Approximate English analogue |
Example |
historical character combinations |
etymology |
有 ← 𠂇 + ⺼ |
components |
orthography (morphemes) |
有 ← 𠂇 + 月 |
components |
orthography (letters) |
有 ← (一 + 丿) + (二 + 冂) |
strokes |
strokes |
有 ← (一 + 丿) + (一 + 一 + 丨 + 𠃌) etc |
The "etymology" and "orthography" are often but not always the same, since writing of characters (especially shorthand of combined ones) has evolved a lot over the centuries, the components that make up a modern character may be completely unrelated etymologically to the original characters combined to create it.
E.g. while 犬 looks like 大 plus one stroke, they actually derive from independent symbols which (when simplified) have a similar appearance:
 |
 |
犬 |
大 |
This is somewhat analogous to how e.g. woodchuck in English looks like it comes from wood + chuck, but is actually from the Algonquian word wuchak.