Breakdown of Binanın otoparkı neresi?
bina
building
neresi
what place / where (nominative or subject)
otopark
parking lot
Questions & Answers about Binanın otoparkı neresi?
Why do we use neresi here instead of nerede?
English uses 'where' for both location and the identity of a place. In Turkish, nerede means 'at what place' (asking where an action happens or where an object is located). Neresi, however, asks 'what place is it?'. Because you are asking to identify the physical space of the parking lot itself rather than asking where an action is taking place, neresi is the correct choice.
What is the -si suffix at the end of neresi?
It is the 3rd-person possessive suffix. The root question word is nere (what place). By adding -si, it becomes a pro-form used to identify a place. Since the subject of the sentence (binanın otoparkı) is a 3rd-person entity ('it'), the question word takes this suffix to match it.
Why is it binanın otoparkı and not just bina otoparkı?
This is a definite genitive-possessive phrase. Because you are talking about the parking lot belonging to a specific building ('the building'), the first word gets the genitive suffix -nın and the second gets the possessive suffix -ı. If you said bina otoparkı, it would mean a generic 'building parking lot' rather than the parking lot of this specific building.
Is the sentence missing a verb like 'is' at the end?
In everyday Turkish, the 'to be' verb suffix for the third person (-dir or -dır) is often implied rather than written out. You could formally ask neresidir? (what place is it?), but leaving it off is completely natural and grammatically complete in both spoken and written Turkish.
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