I want an option in references where I can print out either one line or an element of the line using the -> notation.

Perl doesn't have the facility to index into strings by word. Or by char.

You will either have to store each line as a string, and then split it when you want to access individual words:

@AofLines = ( 'this is line one', 'this is line two' );;

pp \@AofLines;;

[
    "this is line one", 
    "this is line two"
]

print $AofLines[ 0 ];;
this is line one

print +( split ' ', $AofLines[ 1 ] )[ 3 ];;
two
[download]

Or you store each line as an array of words, and the you will need to join them together to get the line back:

@AofAofWords = ( [ qw[this is line one] ], [ qw[this is line two] ] );
+;

pp \@AofAofWords;;
[
    ["this", "is", "line", "one"], 
    ["this", "is", "line", "two"]
]

print $AofAofWords[ 0 ][ 3 ];;
one

print join ' ', @{ $AofAofWords[ 1 ] };;
this is line two
[download]

Which is better for your application will depend upon whether you need to access the words or lines most frequently.

That's because each element is a string now but if you also want to index individual words then make the data structure a reference to an array of arrays by using square brackets around each qw{ ... }.

knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ perl -Mstrict -wE '
> my $refArr2 = [
>    [ qw{ this is the first line } ],
>    [ qw{ Second one is here } ],
>    [ qw{ squint your eyes to see the third } ],
>    [ qw{ fourth is surely near } ],
>    ];
> 
> say $refArr2->[ 1 ]->[ 0 ];
> say qq{@{ $refArr2->[ 1 ] }};'
Second
Second one is here
knoppix@Microknoppix:~$
[download]

I hope this is helpful.

You can't have both a string and an array reference in the same scalar (array element).

You can either store the entire string, and split it when you need an individual word, or store the words individually in an array, and join them when you want the entire string.