Updating a semantic knowledge base derived from sentences obtained from users during the process of creating their documents could improve the comprehensiveness of a semantic knowledge base, and permit the timely acquisition and dissemination of new knowledge. The present invention attains faster updating of semantic knowledge by transmitting unknown sentences collected from users, distributed over a computer network. The user inputs a sentence while creating a document in a particular knowledge domain. If a sentence is not part of the knowledge domain, it is transmitted over the network to the central knowledge source, where it is analyzed and the corresponding sentence and semantic proposition(s) added to the knowledge base as needed. The invention is able to disseminate the knowledge, i.e. propositions, which belong to the knowledge domain, to clients using either a "push" or "pull" methodology.