nonattested

Nonattested is an adjective used in linguistics to describe linguistic forms, words, or features for which there is no surviving attestation in any known language or corpus. A form can be nonattested because it is proposed only as a reconstruction, or because evidence exists only in other related languages but not in the attested data of the language under discussion. The term is often used to distinguish between forms that are directly attested in historical records and those that are hypothesized by the comparative method, internal reconstruction, or typological reasoning.

In practice, nonattested reconstructions are evaluated on the basis of regular sound correspondences, semantic plausibility, and the strength of the comparative data. They remain provisional and are typically labeled as hypothetical or reconstructed in scholarly work. New evidence, such as newly discovered texts or better understanding of sound change, can elevate a nonattested form to attested status or lead to its rejection.

Nonattested does not imply impossibility; many widely accepted proto-forms are nonattested in any language but are widely used in reconstructions. The term also appears in dictionaries and etymological clauses to indicate that a proposed root or sense has no direct attestation and is contingent on linguistic inference.

See also: attested, reconstruction, proto-language, comparative method, etymology, linguistic evidence.