Working through Romeo and Juliet for our AQA Shakespeare coursework, the question was raised about the range of emotions experienced by the protagonists during the famed balcony scene after they first meet. The quality of this scene is accomplished through the range and realism of the emotions created in the characters.
Whether these can be experienced by the reader, though, without having a suitably wide vocabulary is debatable.
At the very least, this indicates a range of emotional concepts that my students would benefit from considering: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrasting_and_categorization_of_emotions
There are a variety of theories that suggest it is possible to conceptualise experience without language. One interesting introduction is: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pristine-inner-experience/201111/thinking-without-words
A more detailed introduction can be found at: http://neuroanthropology.net/2010/07/21/life-without-language/
