Erkeklerle

Erkeklerle is a Turkish grammatical form meaning “with men.” The base noun erkek means man or male, and its plural is erkekler (the men). To express accompaniment or the comitative/instrumental sense, Turkish adds the suffix -le; when this suffix attaches to a plural noun, it merges to form -lerle. Therefore, erkeklerle literally means “with men” and is used to indicate being in the company of a group of male people.

The form is used whenever the speaker refers to actions done together with men, such as speaking, working, or walking. Examples include: Erkeklerle konuştum. (I spoke with men.) Erkeklerle çalışıyorum. (I am working with men.) Erkeklerle birlikte yürüdük. (We walked together with men.) Erkeklerle ilişki veya işbirliği ifade ederken, türüne göre cümle içinde değişik gramer işlevleri alabilir.

Related forms and notes: Turkish also expresses “with” by the separate preposition ile, as in erkek ile çalışmak, though the fused form erkeklerle is common in everyday speech. The construction is gender-specific to a group identified as male and does not imply the speaker’s gender. Similar patterns exist with other nouns, such as kadınlarla (with women) or arkadaşlarla (with friends), illustrating the productive nature of Turkish comitative morphology.