Abstract: In Chinese, complex terms are usually used as one word, so other terms or general words that constitute the term can be seen as morphemes, so called morphemization. Under this view, complex term formation can be described as a three layer model: firstly, basic concepts of a subject can be described by a number of domain element morphemes; then, inherent morpheme groups are extended based on domain element morphemes; finally, complex terms are formed by using inherent morpheme groups. Statistics show that more than 80% terms in communication science contain domain element morphemes and almost all terms contain inherent morpheme groups.

Key words: complex term, morphemization, domain element morpheme, inherent morpheme group