Referentem

Referentem is the accusative singular masculine form of the Latin present active participle referens, derived from the verb refero, referre, meaning “to bring back,” “to report,” or “to relate.” In Latin grammar, participles decline like adjectives and agree with the nouns they modify in gender, number, and case. Therefore referentem is the form used when the participle functions as an attributive member of a phrase and the modified noun is in the accusative singular masculine.

Morphology and use. The present active participle referens has usual Latin declension patterns: referens (nominative singular masculine), referentem (accusative singular masculine), referentis (genitive singular), referenti (dative singular), and so on for other numbers and cases. As with other participles, referentem can appear in phrases that describe or qualify a noun, or in relative clauses where the participle carries aspectual meaning such as “the one who relates/reports.”

Notes. In English-language texts, referentem appears almost exclusively within Latin sentences or glosses and is not an independent English term. The broader semantic concept related to referent concerns the entity to which a term, name, or expression refers, a topic central to semantics and pragmatics. Related terms include referent, referential, deictic, and deixis.