A system, method, and computer-readable medium are disclosed for identifying paraphrases in a natural language processing (NLP) system comprising: receiving a first phrase and a second phrase by a system; analyzing the first phrase and the second phrase to provide a semantic and structural hierarchical comparison assessment, the semantic and structural hierarchical comparison assessment having an associated semantic and structural hierarchical comparison assessment value; and determining whether the semantic and structural hierarchical comparison assessment value exceeds a predetermined paraphrase equivalency criteria; and, responsive to determining the semantic and structural hierarchical comparison assessment value exceeds the predetermined paraphrase equivalency criteria, classifying the second phrase as being a rewording of the first phrase.