When using the Khasi noun 'kali' (car), explain how its gender marker changes when referring to 'one car' versus 'many cars', and how this impacts agreement with an accompanying numeral or adjective.

When using the Khasi noun 'kali' (car), its gender marker changes based on number, impacting agreement with accompanying numerals and adjectives. Khasi assigns grammatical gender not to the noun itself, but to elements that modify or refer to it. The two primary grammatical genders are Masculine, marked by the prefix 'u-', and Feminine, marked by the prefix 'ka-'.

When referring to 'one car', 'kali' is an inanimate singular object. In Khasi grammar, singular inanimate nouns are assigned Masculine gender. This impacts agreement by requiring accompanying numerals and adjectives to take the Masculine gender marker 'u-'. For example, to say 'one car', the numeral 'one' takes the masculine form `uwei` (`u-` + `wei`), resulting in `uwei u kali`. Similarly, if describing 'a big car', the adjectival linker 'which is' takes the masculine form `uba`, leading to `u kali uba heh`, where `uba` explicitly shows agreement with the singular masculine 'kali'.

When referring to 'many cars', 'kali' is an inanimate plural object. For inanimate nouns in their plural form, Khasi grammar assigns Feminine gender. This is the core gender marker change. While the prominent marker for plurality itself is 'ki-', which appears on the noun (e.g., `ki kali` for 'cars') and on plural adjectival linkers (e.g., `kiba bun` for 'many', where `kiba` is the plural form of `uba`/`kaba`), the underlying grammatical gender of the plural inanimate group becomes Feminine. This feminine classification impacts agreement in contexts where gender is expressed beyond simple plurality. For example, if one were to refer to 'one of the cars' (from a plural set), the feminine numeral `kawei` (one, feminine) would be used, as in `kawei na ki kali`, explicitly demonstrating the Feminine agreement for the grammatically plural inanimate category of 'kali'.