The word 今年 is formed by combining two individual characters: 今, which means "now" or "present", and 年, which means "year". Their meanings are fused directly and conceptually, stacking the idea of "present" onto the idea of "year" to create the compound meaning of "this current year" or "the present year". It is a straightforward semantic compound where the sense of the whole is derived from the literal combination of its parts, much like fitting two pieces of a puzzle together to form a single, clear picture.