A natural language processing apparatus (Fig. 3; 100) for performing processing to analyze the meaning of an input sentence entered in the form of a natural language includes a plurality of meaning analyzing devices (41) networked in order to perform processing to analyze the meaning of the input sentence (10), the meaning analyzing devices performing meaning analyzing operations that differ from one another and outputting the results of analysis on a network, a communicating device (50) for applying the input sentence, which is a subject of analysis, to each of the plurality of meaning analyzing devices, a decision device (Fig. 1; 50, Fig. 8) for determining whether independent meaning analysis performed by the plurality of meaning analyzing devices is required with regard to the input sentence, and a consolidating device (Fig. 1; 50, Fig. 8) for consolidating the analytical results from each of the plurality of meaning analyzing devices and applying the consolidated results to the communicating device as the subject of analysis which the communicating device applies to each of the meaning analyzing devices.
Naturel language processing apparatus