The word 叶子 (yèzi), meaning "leaf", is a common modern Mandarin noun formed through the morphological process of suffixation. It combines the core meaning-bearing character 叶 (yè), which historically and semantically represents "leaf" or "foliage", with the widely used, often toneless nominal suffix 子 (zi). This suffix 子 does not carry its literal meaning of "child" here but instead functions grammatically to transform the root into a concrete, discrete noun, frequently lending a colloquial, natural, and sometimes more specific tone to the word, distinguishing it from more literary or compound uses of 叶 alone.