Mehrreferenzielle

Mehrreferenzielle is a term used in linguistics to describe referential constructions in which a single expression targets more than one referent. The concept foregrounds plurality of reference at the level of interpretation, rather than a single, unique referent. Mehrreferenzielle readings arise in several ways, including distributive readings of plural subjects, collective references, and cross-linguistic morphosyntactic marking that signals multiple referents.

In practice, a sentence such as “The committee and the researchers announced their findings” can have a multi-referential interpretation, where the possessive pronoun jointly refers to more than one participant in the discourse. Similarly, pronouns and determiners that agree with a plural group can yield readings covering multiple individuals. In languages with richer agreement or case marking, a single verb form may encode reference to several participants, creating mehrreferenzielle interpretations.

The concept relates to multi-referential anaphora and to broader discourse phenomena such as bridging and center of attention, where subsequent statements pick up different referents linked to the same expression. Mehrreferenzielle analyses appear in semantics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis, and intersect with topics such as distributivity, collective reference, and polyphony.

Not every language or text exhibits mehrreferenzielle structures; it is a theoretical lens for analyzing how reference can be shared across multiple entities rather than fixed to a single one. The term is less standardized and most commonly discussed in niche theoretical discussions rather than as a conventional label in mainstream grammars.