The word "女孩" is formed through the conceptual combination of two written characters. The first character, "女", is an ancient pictograph originally depicting a kneeling figure, which evolved to represent the abstract idea of "female" or "woman". The second character, "孩", is itself a compound, combining the radical "子" (meaning "child") with the component "亥", which primarily provides a phonetic clue to its pronunciation (hái). Therefore, "女孩" visually and semantically merges the concepts of "female" (女) and "child" (孩) to create the meaning of "girl".