24. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computer system to assess the strength of an input semantic relation comprising first and second input words and an input relation type relating the first and second input words by: identifying a salient semantic relation having the input relation type and relating one of the input words to an intermediate word other than the other input word; determining the weight of the identified semantic relation; generating a quantitative measure of the similarity of the intermediate word and the other input word; and generating a confidence weight for the input semantic relation based upon both the generated quantitative measure of the similarity of the intermediate word and the other input word and the determined weight of the identified semantic relation determined.
24. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computer system to assess the strength of an input semantic relation comprising first and second input words and an input relation type relating the first and second input words by: identifying a salient semantic relation having the input relation type and relating one of the input words to an intermediate word other than the other input word; determining the weight of the identified semantic relation; generating a quantitative measure of the similarity of the intermediate word and the other input word; and generating a confidence weight for the input semantic relation based upon both the generated quantitative measure of the similarity of the intermediate word and the other input word and the determined weight of the identified semantic relation determined. 25. The computer-readable medium of claim 24 wherein the contents of the computer-readable medium further cause the computer system to determine that the input semantic relation should be inferred where the confidence weight exceeds a predetermined threshold.