referent

In the sentence 'The cat is sleeping,' the actual animal on the sofa is the referent of the word 'cat.'

(Chinese) 在“猫在睡觉”这句话中，沙发上真实的那只动物就是“猫”这个词的指称对象。

A pronoun can become confusing if it is not clear what its referent is in the previous sentence.

(Chinese) 如果前一句话中不清楚代词的指称对象是什么，代词就会变得令人困惑。