The process of composition is seen in both languages. When two or more radical elements bind together, a simplex word will be formed. The process implies the relation of the elements and it is also related to word order. As Chinese word order is strict, it is inclined to develop compounds. Chinese compound words are much greater in number than Japanese.
For example, consider a Chinese word sequence such as renquán (jin ken “human rights”) or a conventionalized juxtaposition such as nóngfu (no fu “farmer”). The meaning of these compounds are different from the etymological meaning of the component elements.
Reduplication repeats the whole or part of a word, such as in the Japanese phrase omoi omoi “random”. It is seen in Korean, Chinese and Ainu language, but it isn’t often seen in Indo-European languages, Uralic languages and Altaic languages.
Let’s take a look at the differences between Chinese and Japanese. There are word order free languages and word order fixed languages in the world, but most languages are located midway between them. For example Latin is word order free and Chinese is word order fixed. Japanese word order is also almost free.
花村嘉英（2015）「从认知语言学的角度浅析鲁迅作品－魯迅をシナジーで読む」より translated by Yoshihisa Hanamura