attested (adj.)

A term used in LINGUISTICS to refer to a lingustic FORM for which there is evidence of present or past use. In HISTORICAL linguistics, for example, attested forms are those which appear in written texts, as opposed to the ‘RECONSTRUCTED forms’ arrived at by a process of deduction. In studies of contemporary speech, attestation refers to something that is found in actual recorded usage, compared with the hypothetical predictions of GRAMMAR or the INTUITIVE (but otherwise unsupported) observations of the linguist.