The Chinese word **山脊 (shānjǐ)**, meaning "mountain ridge," is a compound noun formed through a straightforward semantic combination of its two constituent characters: **山 (shān)**, meaning "mountain," and **脊 (jǐ)**, meaning "spine" or "ridge." It follows a common grammatical structure in Chinese where a modifying element (**山**) specifies the category or location of the core noun (**脊**), creating a precise, descriptive term. Essentially, it metaphorically compares the long, narrow crest of a mountain to the backbone of a creature, resulting in a vivid and logically constructed word meaning "the spine of a mountain."