A Syntactic Analysis of Minimal Structure in Beckett’s Late Poetry

Abstract

This study explores the syntax of minimal structure in three late English poems by Samuel Beckett: ‘what is the word’ (1989), ‘Roundelay’ (1976) and ‘something there’ (1974), as published in the definitive Collected Poems (Beckett, 2012). Using the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995, 2001), ellipsis theory (Merchant, 2001, 2004) and the Question Under Discussion framework (Roberts, 1996; Büring, 2003), the paper suggests that Beckett’s extreme simplification is not a rejection of grammatical computation, but a harnessing of its most efficient procedures. The study finds three major syntactic phenomena involved: (i) antecedent-less ellipsis (ALE), in which PF-deletion is licensed by an E-feature but the identity condition is satisfied by an informationally deficient QUD-antecedent; (ii) deficient functional projection, where substitution by the lexicon is precluded by the failure to reach minimum functional projections (TP and CP) in the syntax; and (iii) argument structure deficiency (ASD), where arguments' existential content is discharged by their theta-roles but their descriptive content is not, leaving the truth of the proposition with existential content but null discriminatory force. The paper also identifies two types of structures: (i) hypergrammatical structures, which are licensed at PF by fulfilling all formal licensing conditions but are under-determined at LF; and (ii) a minority of conceded ungrammatical structures, which violate strict bare phrase structure conditions. The co-presence of both types within the same work formalises Beckett’s aesthetic of almost nothing. The results bear on the licensing of ellipsis, the notion of economy in the Minimalist program, and the empirical properties of poetic grammar.