Processing semantic subjects that occur as terms within document content

A program storage device, comprising program instructions stored thereon and executable by a processing device to perform operations, the operations comprising:

• adding an extensible vocabulary markup to a plurality of markup languages, each markup language having an associated vocabulary of terms, wherein said adding includes using said extensible vocabulary markup to markup terms of a document of a plurality of documents as occurrences of terms from said vocabularies of said markup languages so that each term of a document marked up using said extensible vocabulary markup is delimited as belonging to a vocabulary of said vocabularies;
• processing a provided term from one or more of said vocabularies, said processing including generating a knowledge representation of a particular document of said plurality of documents in which the provided term occurs, said knowledge representation including an identification of a particular vocabulary of said vocabularies, said particular vocabulary having the provided term, said knowledge representation further including the provided term belonging to the particular vocabulary and an identification of the particular document in which the provided term occurs, said processing further including assigning a unique number to the provided term in the knowledge representation wherein the unique number is a combination of a unique number for the particular vocabulary and a unique number for the term of the provided term, and indexing the particular document with a vector space search algorithm wherein the provided term is represented as a vector as a function of the assigned unique number;
• processing an additional provided term from an additional vocabulary of said vocabularies so that said knowledge representation of said particular document further includes an identification of said additional vocabulary of said vocabularies, and the additional provided term belonging to the additional vocabulary;
• defining a broader-narrower relationship between the provided term of the particular vocabulary and a more narrow term which is an additional provided term from an additional vocabulary;
• inputting one of the provided terms as a search term;
• selecting said particular vocabulary in which the provided term occurs from said plurality of vocabularies;
• assigning said unique number to the provided search term;
• and
• retrieving a plurality of documents including said particular document using said vector space search algorithm, a retrieved document having said inputted provided search term belonging to said selected particular vocabulary, said retrieving including processing said knowledge representation to identify said particular document having said inputted provided search term belonging to said selected particular vocabulary, and matching said assigned unique number assigned said search term, and said retrieved documents further including a document having said more narrow term, said retrieving including processing said knowledge representation to identify documents having the more narrow term and merging the results of said knowledge representation processing to provide retrieved documents having at least one of said inputted provided search term and said more narrow term.