5. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the intended meaning for the utterance further includes: identifying a conversational goal associated with the utterance, roles associated with the user and one or more other participants in the current conversation, and an information allocation among the user and the one or more other participants in the current conversation; and classifying one or more of the utterance or the current conversation into a conversation type based on one or more of the identified conversational goal, the identified roles, or the identified information allocation, wherein the conversational speech engine further establishes the intended meaning based on the conversation type.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein the established intended meaning comprises a hypothesis having a degree of certainty about the intent that the user had in speaking the one or more words in the utterance.