Referent

A referent ( ) is an entity to which a name – a linguisticexpression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence Mary saw me, the referent of the word Mary is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, while the referent of the word me is the person uttering the sentence.

Two expressions which have the same referent are said to be co-referential. In the sentence John had his dog with him, for instance, the nounJohn and the pronounhim are co-referential, since they both refer to the same person (John).