The word 巷子 (xiàngzi), meaning "alley" or "lane", is formed through a common Chinese morphological process where the core morpheme 巷 (xiàng), which historically means a narrow street or lane, is combined with the suffix 子 (zi). The suffix 子 here serves a nominalizing and often colloquializing function; it doesn't add concrete meaning but transforms the root into a more commonplace, familiar noun used in everyday speech. Thus, 巷子 is a compound word where the suffix enhances the lexicalization of the root, making it a standard term for a small street, akin to how "booklet" is formed from "book" with a diminutive suffix in English.