System and method for matching textual input to word knowledge base and for utilizing results of that match

The present invention can be used in a natural language processing system (100) to determine a relationship (such as similarity in meaning) between two textual segments. The relationship can be identified or determined based on logical graphs (e.g. FIGS. 3B, 3C) generated from the textual segments. A relationship between first and second logical graphs (FIGS. 3B, 3C) is determined. This is accomplished regardless of whether there is an exact match between the first and second logical graphs (FIGS. 3B, 3C). In one embodiment, the first graph (FIG. 3B) represents an input textual discourse unit. The second graph (FIG. 3C), in one embodiment, represents information in a lexical knowledge base (LKB) (106). The input graph can be matched against the second graph, if they have similar meaning, even if the two differ lexically or structurally.