Iconicity vs. Cognitive Constraints: a Pragmatic-oriented discussion

There is a conflict between a conception of complexity in terms of structure and in terms of interpretation. This problem will be approached with recourse to the contrast between a simple declarative sentence and corresponding clefted sentences. I will try to show that clefted constructions are marked if considered as single sentences but they are more natural when projected within the text and evaluated from a textual-pragmatic perspective. This consideration allows to range complex structures along a cline of markedness given the premise that structural markedness does not necessarily correspond to cognitive complexity. The paper shows that the evaluations about markedness and complexity are strongly relativized by textual factors, because textual factors both constrain the structures and explain the marked choices.