Abstract: Roughly described, the invention addresses the above problems by separating an actuation subsystem from the natural language interpretation system. The NLI develops “interpretation result commands” in response to user input, and transmits them to the actuation subsystem using a predefined interpretation result command format that is independent of the requirements of the particular back-end application. The actuation subsystem, which is the only component that is specific to the back-end application, converts the interpretation result command into one or more “application commands” and communicates it (them) to the back-end application in the form required by the specific back-end application. In some embodiments the actuation subsystem also can take results from a back-end application in application-dependent form, and convert it to a common predefined internal format that is application-independent.