Abstract: An important aspect in discourse comprehension is the interpretation of different type of linguistic references. First, this article introduces the principle and pattern of reference distribution in discourse and it’s effect on local discourse coherence; Second, it analyzes the role of information structure and prosody in reference resolution; Third, it points out the underlying psychological mechanism of reference distribution; Finally, the contribution of previous researches on reference and questions remained to be resolved are addressed and several research methods are spelled out.

Key words: reference, discourse entity, salience, processing cost