A method and apparatus perform semantic parsing by designating one or more words
in an input text stream as wildcards. Under some embodiments, partially constructed
parses formed from other words in the text stream are used to control when a later
word will be identified as a wildcard. In particular, if a partial parse is expecting
a semantic token that begins with a wildcard, the next word in the input text segment
is designated as a wildcard term. If none of the existing partial parses are expecting
a semantic token that begins with a wildcard, the next word is not designated as
a wildcard