Linguistic Complexity of Mixed Episode in Sadegh Hedayat's Letters: The Effect of Bipolar Mood Disorder

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the syntactic complexity of mixed episode in Sadegh Hedayat, supposedly suffering from Bipolar Disorder. The first study studies depressive and hypomanic states in the episode. The results illustrate that Hedayat shows the highest complexity in the hypomanic state, whereas he has a significant simplicity in syntax in depressive state. The results are analyzed by studying three types of sentences (i.e., simple, paratactic and hypotactic) and embedded clauses. Moreover, in the second study, the complexities of the hypomanic episode and the hypomanic state in mixed episode are compared.

KEYWORDS: Bipolar Mood Disorder, mixed episode, syntactic complexity, hypomania