A method and structure for automatically producing bridging inferences that join two related input sentences, by applying a lexicon and ontology data structure to a first input sentence to produce first input tagged sentences, applying the lexicon and ontology data structure to a second input sentence to produce second input tagged sentences, matching each first input tagged sentence to first rules, generating first inferred tagged sentences from the first rules, matching the first inferred tagged sentences to second rules, generating second inferred tagged sentences from the second rules, matching the second inferred tagged sentences to third rules, generating third inferred tagged sentences from the third rules, and so on, until a final inferred tagged sentence matches any second input tagged sentence. For each final inferred tagged sentence matching a second input tagged sentence, a bridging inference path is produced as output comprising a first input tagged sentence, a first inferred tagged sentence, a second inferred tagged sentence, a third inferred tagged sentence, and so on, and a final inferred tagged sentence. The first inferred tagged sentence in the briding inference path is the particular first inferred tagged sentence that resulted from application of a first rule to the first input tagged sentence. For the second through the last inferred tagged sentences in the bridging inference path, each inferred tagged sentence in the bridging inference path is the particular inferred tagged sentence that resulted from application of a rule to the previous inferred tagged sentence in the bridging inference path.