A mechanism is provided for improving predicate parses (or logical representations of a passage) using semantic knowledge. In response to encountering an ambiguous decision point during a syntactic analysis of a portion of natural language content, a candidate meaning of the ambiguous decision point is generated. Characteristics of the ambiguous decision point are evaluated based on a semantic knowledge base to determine a semantic meaning associated with the ambiguous decision point. A determination is made as to whether the semantic meaning supports or refutes the candidate meaning. In response to determining that the semantic meaning refutes the candidate meaning, the candidate meaning of the ambiguous decision point is overridden based on the semantic meaning to include the semantic meaning as a final meaning for the ambiguous decision point. The portion of natural language content is then processed based on the final meaning for the ambiguous decision point.