Reading [Is there a difference in drawing between the "mouth" and "enclosure"
kanji radicals?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/45298/is-there-
a-drawing-difference-between-these-2-kanji-radicals) made me think: does `囗`
(enclosure) _have_ to be the outermost radical? Apparently the answer is "no"
since we have this (incomplete) list of exceptions: `烟姻廻咽個恩悃迴`. It also seems
to happen with other "enclosure type" radicals, e.g. `厂`->`板` or `广` -> `俯`,
but are there any radicals that can only be in a specific position in the
kanji and nowhere else?
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question
kanji radicals
Are there any radicals with immutable position in kanji?
It's an interesting question. My first idea was that as a general rule a
radical could appear everywhere, except when it comes in some "contracted
form" (think of つちへん（土偏） such as in 地) where it has to be in a specific place
(left in this case). Of course this is just a graphical distinction but we are
talking always of the same kanji, that is, 土. If you look at all kanji where
this is the radical, when written as 土偏 it's always and only on the left.

Anyway, I think
[Wikipedia](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96#.E9.83.A8.E9.A6.96.E3.81.AE.E5.9E.8B.E3.81.A8.E4.BD.8D.E7.BD.AE)
also provide interesting insights:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AIeXi.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AIeXi.png)

According to this it seems that there is not a general rule for the position,
and a radical could indeed appear everywhere.

My guess that in some particular forms (like earth on the left as I mentioned
above) they always appear in the same place still remains though. As I said I
failed to see a kanji where the contracted form of 土 is not on the left, but
yet again, although it graphically looks different it is always 土.

Anyway I guess that in general the answer to your question is no, and the key
sentence in the article above is the following:

> [...] 部首は、原則として文字のグループに共通する意味を表すので、部首のつく位置は必ずしも一定していない.
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answer