The Chinese word 古人 (gǔrén), meaning "the ancients" or "people of ancient times", is a compound noun formed through semantic combination. Its structure is Modifier + Head, where the first character 古 (gǔ), meaning "ancient" or "old", acts as an adjective to modify and specify the second character 人 (rén), which means "person" or "people". Together, they create a straightforward and logical meaning: "ancient people". This formation is a classic example of how modern Chinese vocabulary is built by combining existing, meaningful characters (morphemes) to express a new, composite concept.