Heteroclisis in Menander and the authorship of P. Ant. 15 (= fr. com. adesp. 1084 K.-A.)

This paper has two aims, both technical, and one perhaps of more general interest than the other. The first part of the paper reviews the evidence for heteroclisis in Menander. It presents the data with primarily historical and philological discussion; how the Greek facts might best be synchronically described is a problem I will leave to others. What concerns us here is the history of individual lexemes and stem types, so far as it can be known, and what variations in stem realisation are in fact attested in which cells of nominal paradigms. This is a necessary preliminary for discussion of the question of the authorship of P. Ant. 15. This paper argues that the evidence for heteroclisis in Menander gives us some significant counterevidence for Menandrean authorship of P. Ant. 15; the paper therefore rehearses the arguments for Menandrean authorship. The discussion of heteroclisis provides us with secure grounds for judging the papyrus to be by another comic poet. This means that nonMenandrean New Comedy may have survived longer than normally assumed