I'm curious too. Can we right-away accept the proposition that "A Sentence can refer to itself"? If a sentence refers to 'this sentence', what does it in fact

I'm curious too. Can we right-away accept the proposition that "A Sentence can refer to itself"? If a sentence refers to 'this sentence', what does it in fact precisely refer to? And what is the "it" that does the referring? Maybe, a "sentence" can not refer to anything. It is the person uttering the sentence that does the referring. But then of course when he or she says "this sentence" they would really mean, me, this person.