unattested

Unattested is an adjective used in linguistics and related fields to describe a form, word, root, or event for which there is no surviving evidence in the available data or records. When something is unattested, it has not been found in written texts, inscriptions, or other primary sources, and its existence must be inferred indirectly or remains hypothetical. The term helps distinguish between what is known from evidence and what is not.

In historical linguistics and etymology, unattested forms often arise in reconstruction. A proposed proto-language form may be unattested in any direct descendant language; the support for it rests on regular sound changes and comparative method rather than on a cited example. Writers label such forms unattested to indicate that there is no extant citation of the form itself.

In lexicography and grammar, an attestation is a documented occurrence in a source. A sense or usage can be described as unattested if it has not appeared in corpora or dictionaries, or if it appears only in reconstructed or hypothetical analyses. Such designation signals caution about the evidence for that form.

Caveats: Absence of attestation may reflect gaps in investigation or preservation rather than true absence. Unattested items may later be discovered, or be rejected as unsupported hypotheses if they fail to fit the data. The term is thus a statement about evidential status, not about inherent possibility.

See also: attestation, reconstruction, etymology, corpus linguistics.