Described is a technology by which a structured model of repetition is used to determine the words spoken by a user, and/or a corresponding database entry, based in part on a prior utterance. For a repeated utterance, a joint probability analysis is performed on (at least some of) the corresponding word sequences as recognized by one or more recognizers) and associated acoustic data. For example, a generative probabilistic model, or a maximum entropy model may be used in the analysis. The second utterance may be a repetition of the first utterance using the exact words, or another structural transformation thereof relative to the first utterance, such as an extension that adds one or more words, a truncation that removes one or more words, or a whole or partial spelling of one or more words.