29. A system according to claim 16 , wherein: the text document annotation means comprises an automated tool or carries out operations that are performed at least in part by a human operator.
16. A system for extraction of text from a set of text documents comprising: text document annotation means for identifying a plurality of document segments within a given text document and, for each given document segment, generating and storing at least one structured annotation embedded within the document and associated with the given segment, the at least one structured annotation specifying the start and end of the given document segment and a rhetorical relation associated with the given segment; annotation processing means for processing the structured annotations generated and stored by the text document annotation means to generate a plurality of variables that represent document segments and associated rhetorical relations as specified by the structured annotations; a repository storing the variables generated by the annotation processing means; user input query means for receiving query input from a user that specifies at least one rhetorical relation of interest; and query processing logic, operably coupled to the user input query means and the repository, that utilizes said query input to query the variables stored in the repository to identify zero or more document segments that are associated with a rhetorical relation that matches the at least one rhetorical relation of interest specified by said query input for output to the user.