This comparative study, using a verification task, explores the similarities and dissimilarities in the utilization of the surface cues of animacy, word order, focal accent, and marked cleft structure between two qualitatively and quantitatively different languages, English and Mandarin Chinese, for given and new interpretation within an isolated sentence. The results bolster the interactive constraint-based perspective of pragmatic processing, and disclose cross-linguistic variations, which were investigated from psycholinguistic, information patterning and typological viewpoints.