A Case Study of Negative Affixes in Sadegh Hedayat's Letters: The Effect of Bipolar Mood Disorder

This research studies the morphological features found in Sadegh Hedayat's letters, who, based on linguistic and psychological studies, may have had bipolar disorder. It aims to assess the impact of various types of moods on the frequency of negative affixes through qualitative analysis of the letters' text. The letters are written in Persian, and include six negative derivational affixes. As bipolar disorder includes four episodes, all letters are analyzed on the basis of six negative affixes concerning the episodes using SPSS. The results indicate that each episode shows totally different characteristics in using negative affixes. In fact, Hedayat mostly used negative affixes in depression, confirming psychological studies, and it is revealed that he mostly used negative affixes in hypomania when he experienced an irritated mood. Moreover, the frequency of negative affixes in mixed episode shows a combination of hypomania and depression, which is in agreement with previous studies. Additionally, euthymia shows few negative affixes.