20. A computer system, comprising: means for representing at least one user goal with respect to a domain; means for representing at least one task for a software component, which task can be accomplished in the domain independent of stated user goals; means for establishing an association between at least one linguistic or pragmatic item and the user goal, the at least one linguistic or pragmatic item having an association with the at least one task; means for inferring, using the associations, that the software component is appropriate for achieving the at least one user goal, using the associations; and means for distributing the representation of the user goal, the representation of the task, the associations, an inference, or a performance of the task through execution of the software component among processing resources of the computer system.
20. A computer system, comprising: means for representing at least one user goal with respect to a domain; means for representing at least one task for a software component, which task can be accomplished in the domain independent of stated user goals; means for establishing an association between at least one linguistic or pragmatic item and the user goal, the at least one linguistic or pragmatic item having an association with the at least one task; means for inferring, using the associations, that the software component is appropriate for achieving the at least one user goal, using the associations; and means for distributing the representation of the user goal, the representation of the task, the associations, an inference, or a performance of the task through execution of the software component among processing resources of the computer system. 28. The system of claim 20 , further comprising means for inferring at least one user goal incrementally from elements of discourse including: means for representing at least one terminological, ontological, lexical, grammatical, or idiomatic item of focusing information with respect to the domain; means for recording a history of transactions and the user goals associated with the transactions; means for updating a representation of the user goals by increasing the likelihood of the user goals that are consistent with the transactions, and by decreasing the likelihood of the user goals that are inconsistent with the transactions; and means for using the updated representation to generate the most likely meaning of subsequent user inputs.