referohen

Referohen is a hypothetical framework used in linguistics and cognitive science to classify referential signals that preserve coherence about referents across discourse. The concept encompasses both explicit linguistic forms and paralinguistic cues that influence how a listener identifies and tracks entities over multiple sentences.

Definition and scope: A referohen marker is any cue that triggers the recognition of a referent in a discourse context. It includes overt devices such as pronouns, demonstratives, and proper names, as well as covert cues such as prosody, pausing, repetition, and typographic emphasis in written text. The core idea is that referohen markers encode information about salience, focus, perspective, and topic continuity that aids interpretation.

Typology: The framework distinguishes two main subtypes: overt referohen markers (pronouns, demonstratives, repeated nouns, and proper names) and covert referohen markers (prosodic features, pauses, and repetition patterns not overtly marked).

Function and use: In analysis of discourse, referohen markers are thought to reduce processing load by signaling which entity in the discourse universe is in focus or requires reference resolution. In computational models, recognizing referohen markers can improve coreference resolution and dialogue tracking.

Reception and status: Referohen remains a speculative framework with limited empirical consensus. Critics argue that the distinctions it draws often overlap with established notions of anaphora, deixis, and cohesion. Proponents contend it helps unify cross-modal signals under a single account of reference management.

See also: Anaphora, Deixis, Coreference, Cohesion, Discourse markers, Prosody.