Reference tracking is the use of linguistic expressions to identify whether the same or a different referent is referred to within or across sentences. Syntactic and pragmatic factors may influence the selection of referring expressions. Among those, salience of an antecedent is the most important one. That is, in case the referent is easily retrievable in the signed context, it is usually referred to by forms containing less or no linguistic material such as pronouns, clitics or zero items. On the other hand, if a referent is difficult to retrieve from the context, more elaborated forms like noun phrases are preferred.
DGS signers make extensive use of zero and full pronouns [Lexicon 3.7] as well as agreement marking on verbs [Morphology 3.1] and classifier predicates [Morphology 5] in order to keep track of animate and inanimate referents in signed utterances. Moreover, buoys [Pragmatics 2.2.3] accompanied by facial and bodily movements can be used to identify referents.