1. An interactive system adapted for responding to speech-based queries concerning topics addressed by such interactive system, the system comprising: a query file for storing a plurality of topic query entries, each topic query entry including a query relating to one or more of the topics covered by the speech-based interactive system; and an answer file for storing a plurality of topic answer entries, each topic answer entry including an answer to one or more of said plurality of topic query entries, such that each topic query entry has at least one associated topic answer entry; and a speech recognition system for generating recognized speech data from partially processed speech data associated with a speech-based query concerning one of said topics, said partially processed speech data being received from a remote speech capturing system; and said speech recognition system further cooperating with a natural language engine which generates recognized speech sentence data corresponding to said speech-based query using both semantic decoding and statistical based processing performed on said recognized speech utterance data; a query formulation system for converting said recognized speech data into a search query suitable for identifying a topic query entry corresponding to said speech-based query, and for locating at least one topic answer entry best matching said speech-based query.