Epic-oracular markedness in 5th c. BCE Greek comic fragments

The function of register features and linguistic indicators for epic (phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntactic structures, formulas, metre, narrative outset) in fragments of Sicilian and Old Attic comedy constitute the subject of this paper. Decoding epic-oracular register in comedy contributes to the reading of the fragmentary text. This is particularly significant in the lack of an explanatory context. The conscious juxtaposition of epic and comic registers and patterns by comedians can be thought of as a parodic game creating comic dissonance; but comic texts also reflect discourses on genre indicators of the time and should thus be considered in the larger framework of the development of Greek philological thought.