The Chinese word 罚款 (fákuǎn) is a compound formed by combining two meaningful characters: 罚 (fá), which means "to punish" or "penalize", and 款 (kuǎn), which in this context means "a sum of money". Together, they create a verb-noun structure where the first character dictates the action (punishing) and the second specifies the medium or object of that action (money), thus logically forming the meaning "to impose a monetary penalty" or simply "a fine". This transparent compounding is a common method in Mandarin for creating precise terms by combining existing semantic units.