About
The Chinese word 垃圾堆 (lājī duī), meaning "garbage heap" or "rubbish pile", is a compound noun formed through a straightforward modifier-head structure common in Mandarin. It combines the disyllabic morpheme 垃圾 (lājī), which means "garbage" or "trash", with the monosyllabic morpheme 堆 (duī), meaning "pile" or "heap". In this construction, 垃圾 acts as an attributive modifier that specifies the type of pile, while 堆 serves as the semantic head, indicating the core object. Therefore, the term is built logically by pairing the descriptor of the material ("garbage") with the noun denoting its assembled form ("pile"), creating a clear and compound concept.