The Chinese word 护身符 (hùshēnfú), meaning "amulet" or "protective talisman," is a compound noun formed through logical semantic combination: the verb 护 (hù, "to protect") takes the object 身 (shēn, "body" or "self"), creating the verb-phrase 护身 ("to protect the body"), which then modifies the core noun 符 (fú, "talisman" or "charm"). Thus, the entire compound literally and conceptually means "a body-protecting talisman," where the modifying element (护身) describes the specific function of the object (符), following the common Chinese syntactic pattern of modifier-head construction.