Do you mean references instead of pointers? I'm not familiar of a difference between pointers and raw pointers in C or C++.

C++ allows to be more clear: unique_ptrs allow to move ownership, references mean this is definitely not owned, and the remaining questions are around normal pointers.

With pure C there is however zero distinction. A pointer can mean ownership is transferred, it is meant to be a reference, it could be a static reference to something in constant memory, etc.