15. A computer system for determining the level of similarity of a pair of input words, the method comprising: a semantic relation type path pattern weighting subsystem that, for each of a plurality of semantic relation type path patterns comprising an ordered series of semantic relation types, determines a weight for the semantic relation type path pattern characterizing the extent to which semantic relation paths having the semantic relation type path pattern and occurring between arbitrary pairs of words indicate that the arbitrary pairs of words have similar meanings; and a weight combination subsystem that, for paths between the input words including the most salient paths between the input words, combines the weights determined for the semantic relation type path patterns corresponding to the paths between the input words in order to obtain an indication of the level of similarity of the pair of input words.
15. A computer system for determining the level of similarity of a pair of input words, the method comprising: a semantic relation type path pattern weighting subsystem that, for each of a plurality of semantic relation type path patterns comprising an ordered series of semantic relation types, determines a weight for the semantic relation type path pattern characterizing the extent to which semantic relation paths having the semantic relation type path pattern and occurring between arbitrary pairs of words indicate that the arbitrary pairs of words have similar meanings; and a weight combination subsystem that, for paths between the input words including the most salient paths between the input words, combines the weights determined for the semantic relation type path patterns corresponding to the paths between the input words in order to obtain an indication of the level of similarity of the pair of input words. 16. The computer system of claim 15 wherein the weight combination subsystem is an averager that determines the mean of the weights determined for the semantic relation type path patterns corresponding to the paths between the input words.