| Ta'Oi | |
| Nativename: | Ta Oi |
| States: | Laos, Vietnam |
| Ethnicity: | Ta Oi, Katang |
| Date: | 1995–2005 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Austro-Asiatic |
| Fam2: | Katuic |
| Lc1: | tth |
| Ld1: | Upper Ta'Oi |
| Lc2: | irr |
| Ld2: | Ir (Hantong) |
| Lc3: | oog |
| Ld3: | Ong (= Ir) |
| Lc4: | tto |
| Ld4: | Lower Ta'Oi |
| Lc5: | ngt |
| Ld5: | Ngeq (Kriang) |
| Glotto: | taoi1247 |
| Glottorefname: | Ta'oihic |
| Elp: | 1254 |
| Elpname: | Chatong |
Ta'Oi (Ta'Oih, Ta Oi) is a Katuic dialect chain of Salavan and Sekong provinces in Laos, and in Thừa Thiên-Huế province in Vietnam (Sidwell 2005:12).
Sidwell (2005) lists the following varieties of Ta'Oi, which is a name applied to speakers of various related dialects.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| Plosive | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| Fricative | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Rhotic | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | |
| Mid | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | |
| Open | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ |
| Close | ia | ɨa | ua |
|---|
Taoih, like other Katuic languages, is largely analytic and slightly inflectional.[3] Taoih has a large amounts of affixes which mark agreement for person and case and derive new lexicalized words. The specific cases that are marked differ by person. There are several grammatical cases in Taoih, including some important ones: nominative, accusative, locative, dative, and genitive.
| 1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial | aku | nhǎng | muhe | ame | inhoa | ipe | ʔo | anho'a | ape | |
| Genitive | ɘɳku | ɘɳnhǎng | ɘɳhe | ɘɳme/ɘɳmaɨ | ɘɳoinhoa | ɘɳoipe | ɘɳo | ɘɳoanho'a | ɘɳoape | |
| Dative | aku | anhǎng | ahe | amme/ammai | aoinhoa | aoipe | ao | aoanho'a | aoape | |
| Locative | - | - | ihe | ime/imai | - | - | ido | - | imaɨ | |
Taoih is prominently a neutral alignment language. Taoih exhibits neutral alignment for case with (in)transitive verbs and also neutral alignment for agreement in both (in)transitive and ditransitive frames, the verb never shows agreement with any argument, regardless of its transitivity. For ditransitive verbs, Taoih exhibits indirective alignment.
To mark benefactive arguments, the dative marker and preposition adeh occur before patients.