1. A computer-implemented method for automatically generating answers to questions comprising the steps of: determining a lexical answer type (LAT) associated with an input query; obtaining one or more candidate answers to said input query using a data source having semi-structured content; determining a lexical type (LT) for each said one or more obtained candidate answer from said semi-structured content; comparing said query LAT with said candidate answer LT; and generating a score representing a degree of match between said compared query LAT with said candidate answer LT, said score indicative of a quality of said obtained candidate answer, wherein a processing device automatically performs one or more of said determining a query LAT, computing candidate answers, determining a LT, comparing and generating.