Participant reference is the functional domain of referring to or mentioning Things in the mental world of discourse. The relationship between referring expressions and participants is illustrated in Figure 5.1. If I am talking about an old fox, the image that appears in my mind is the referent and I may use any number of referring expressions to mention that referent; I may use a determined noun phrase, an old fox, a pronoun, it, he, or any number of other linguistic forms. Which form I use depends on a number of factors, including the precise nuances of meaning I want to express, the syntactic context, and my judgments concerning the version of the discourse stage that my hearers have already built in their minds.

In context, almost any gesture can serve to refer to something a speaker wishes to mention; a glance, a nod of the head, a pointing finger, elbow, or lips can serve the function of “setting up” or referring back to a character on the discourse stage. Referring to participants is such an important communicative function that every language has well-oiled grammatical means of accomplishing it.