Reference to Abstract Objects in Discourse presents a novel framework and analysis of the ways we refer to abstract objects in natural language discourse. The book begins with a typology of abstract objects and related entities like eventualities. After an introduction to `bottom up, compositional' discourse representation theory (DRT) and to previous work on abstract objects in DRT (notably work on the semantics of the attitudes), the book turns to a semantic analysis of eventuality and abstract object denoting nominals in English. The book then substantially revises and extends the dynamic semantic framework of DRT to develop an analysis of anaphoric reference to abstract objects and eventualities that exploits discourse structure and the discourse relations that obtain between elements of the structure. A dynamic, semantically based theory of discourse structure (SDRT) is proposed, along with many illustrative examples. Two further chapters then provide the analysis of anaphoric reference to propositions VP ellipsis. The abstract entity anaphoric antecedents are elements of the discourse structures that SDRT develops. The final chapter discusses some logical and philosophical difficulties for a semantic analysis of reference to abstract objects. For semanticists, philosophers of language, computer scientists interested in natural language applications and discourse, philosophical logicians, graduate students in linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science and artificial intelligence.

Family, Body, Sexuality and Health is Volume III of the Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures. In almost 200 well written entries it covers the broad field of family, body, sexuality and health and Islamic cultures.

This volume is a collection of papers on model theory and its applications. The longest paper, "Model Theory of Unitriangular Groups" by O. V. Belegradek, forms a subtle general theory behind Mal'tsev's famous correspondence between rings and groups. This is the first published paper on the topic. Given the present model-theoretic interest in algebraic groups, Belegradek's work is of particular interest to logicians and algebraists. The rest of the collection consists of papers on various questions of model theory, mainly on stability theory. Contributors are leading Russian researchers in the field.