Lexicographic interpretation of taronyms: on the problem of vocabulary selection

Erroneous mixing of lexical units has traditionally been viewed in theculture of speech, where it is interpreted as a violation of the accuracy of statements. However, the set of lexical chains consisting ofimproperly mixed words can be considered as a separate anthropocentric unit of the lexical system. Taronyms (from Greek taratto 'Imix, confuse' and onoma, onyma 'name') are lexical and phraseological units, which are consistently mixed while producing and / orperceiving speech due to their formal, semantic or thematic contiguity. Thus, the constitutive feature of taronyms is their evidential orhighly probabilistic ability to be confused in the process of speech production or speech perception. Another no less important concept isthe taronymic value of the word which is "responsible" for its ability to enter / not to enter taronymic relations with other words. Thebasic structural unit of the taronymy category is a taronymic chain (a group of words or phraseological words that have already beeninvolved in involuntary verbal confusion). In a definite taronymic act, such a chain is always represented by the taronymic pair, oneelement of which is the correct word, whereas the other is its erroneous deputy. For two words to be categorized as taronyms, it is necessaryfor a real or virtual fact of their erroneous mixing in the speech to have taken place. Taronymy arises at the moment of language use(i.e. only at the level of speech) as a failure of an associative lapsus linguae. This allows us to assert that to discover taronyms is possibleonly by monitoring the speech of native speakers, or exploring their speech works. Regarding taronyms as anthropocentric units requires,as one would expect in case of the necessity to describe the units in a dictionary, to refer to the procedures typical of the anthropocentriclexicography. The main provisions of the anthropocentric-oriented lexicography are revealed by contrasting linguocentric andanthropocentric approaches to the description of the language. The category of taronymy has every reason to become one of the objectsof anthropocentric lexicography and, primarily, the academically oriented one. Having set the task of developing an optimal lexicographicrepresentation of taronyms, it is necessary to determine the macrostructure of a special dictionary of taronyms. The main problemof the macrostructure of the dictionary under development is vocabulary selection. This problem is solved by a successive study ofthe probable taronyms within the chains of different types, and by description of the selection rules applied for chains of all types oftaronymic units.

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