 So, the common cause of the imposition of universal words cannot be any one thing, or a multitude of things; yet, being a common cause, it cannot be nothing. Therefore, this common cause, which Abelard calls the  status[30]  of those things to which it is common, is a cause, but it is a cause which is a non-thing. However strange this may sound, Abelard observes that sometimes we do assign causes which are not things. For example, when we say “The ship was wrecked because the pilot was absent”, the cause that we assign, namely, that the pilot was absent is not some thing, it is rather how things were, i.e., the way things were, which in this case we signify by the whole proposition “The pilot was  absent”.[31]  From the point of view of understanding what Abelard’s status are, it is significant that he assimilates the causal role of status as the common cause of imposition to causes that are signified by whole propositions. These significata of whole propositions, which in English we may refer to by using the corresponding “that-clauses” (as I did above, referring to the cause of the ship’s wreck by the phrase “that the pilot was absent”), and in Latin by an accusative-with-infinitive construction, are what Abelard calls the dicta of propositions. These dicta, not being identifiable with any single thing, yet, not being nothing, constitute an ontological realm that is completely different from that of ordinary things. But it is also in this realm that Abelard’s common causes of imposition may find their place.