The Chinese word **前天** (*qiántiān*), meaning "the day before yesterday," is a logical compound formed by combining two morphemes: **前** (*qián*), which means "front" or "before," and **天** (*tiān*), which means "day." In the temporal context, **前** metaphorically indicates a prior point in time, so when prefixed to **天**, it creates the meaning "the day before (today)," illustrating a common pattern in Chinese where directional or positional characters are used to denote time sequences.