@inproceedings{zhang-etal-2026-execution,
title = "Execution as Verification: Fine-Grained Self-Correcting Reasoning for Complex {KBQA}",
author = "Zhang, Minghan and
Yang, Zhen and
Zou, Haodong and
Chen, Jie and
Duan, Zhen and
Zhao, Shu",
editor = "Liakata, Maria and
Moreira, Viviane P. and
Zhang, Jiajun and
Jurgens, David",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)",
month = jul,
year = "2026",
address = "San Diego, California, United States",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1747/",
pages = "37646--37663",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-390-6",
abstract = "Knowledge Base Question Answering (KBQA) leverages structured knowledge bases to offer superior interpretability and hallucination resistance, making it a critical technology for precise knowledge reasoning. However, the prevailing LLM-based generate-then-execute formulation of semantic parsing is limited by strict syntactic constraints, making it primarily prone to structural deviations that render queries unexecutable, while suffering from semantic deviations that yield incorrect execution results. To address these challenges, we propose the Execution as Verification (EVER) framework, reframing semantic parsing as an iterative, self-correcting reasoning process driven by execution feedback. First, motivated by the insight that query executability serves as a strong proxy for answer correctness, we introduce Fine-Grained Execution-Aware Planning. This mechanism decomposes complex semantic parsing into a sequence of stepwise reasoning processes oriented by executability verification, ensuring high query executability. We further design a Self-Guided Semantic Correction mechanism based on execution result verification, utilizing execution feedback to verify and calibrate semantic deviations, thereby ensuring the semantic correctness of executable queries. Experimental results on the WebQSP and CWQ datasets demonstrate that our method achieves significant improvements in both query executability and answer accuracy, achieving state-of-the-art performance, particularly in complex multi-hop scenarios. Our code is available at https://github.com/ahu-zmh/EVER."
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<abstract>Knowledge Base Question Answering (KBQA) leverages structured knowledge bases to offer superior interpretability and hallucination resistance, making it a critical technology for precise knowledge reasoning. However, the prevailing LLM-based generate-then-execute formulation of semantic parsing is limited by strict syntactic constraints, making it primarily prone to structural deviations that render queries unexecutable, while suffering from semantic deviations that yield incorrect execution results. To address these challenges, we propose the Execution as Verification (EVER) framework, reframing semantic parsing as an iterative, self-correcting reasoning process driven by execution feedback. First, motivated by the insight that query executability serves as a strong proxy for answer correctness, we introduce Fine-Grained Execution-Aware Planning. This mechanism decomposes complex semantic parsing into a sequence of stepwise reasoning processes oriented by executability verification, ensuring high query executability. We further design a Self-Guided Semantic Correction mechanism based on execution result verification, utilizing execution feedback to verify and calibrate semantic deviations, thereby ensuring the semantic correctness of executable queries. Experimental results on the WebQSP and CWQ datasets demonstrate that our method achieves significant improvements in both query executability and answer accuracy, achieving state-of-the-art performance, particularly in complex multi-hop scenarios. Our code is available at https://github.com/ahu-zmh/EVER.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Execution as Verification: Fine-Grained Self-Correcting Reasoning for Complex KBQA
%A Zhang, Minghan
%A Yang, Zhen
%A Zou, Haodong
%A Chen, Jie
%A Duan, Zhen
%A Zhao, Shu
%Y Liakata, Maria
%Y Moreira, Viviane P.
%Y Zhang, Jiajun
%Y Jurgens, David
%S Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
%D 2026
%8 July
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C San Diego, California, United States
%@ 979-8-89176-390-6
%F zhang-etal-2026-execution
%X Knowledge Base Question Answering (KBQA) leverages structured knowledge bases to offer superior interpretability and hallucination resistance, making it a critical technology for precise knowledge reasoning. However, the prevailing LLM-based generate-then-execute formulation of semantic parsing is limited by strict syntactic constraints, making it primarily prone to structural deviations that render queries unexecutable, while suffering from semantic deviations that yield incorrect execution results. To address these challenges, we propose the Execution as Verification (EVER) framework, reframing semantic parsing as an iterative, self-correcting reasoning process driven by execution feedback. First, motivated by the insight that query executability serves as a strong proxy for answer correctness, we introduce Fine-Grained Execution-Aware Planning. This mechanism decomposes complex semantic parsing into a sequence of stepwise reasoning processes oriented by executability verification, ensuring high query executability. We further design a Self-Guided Semantic Correction mechanism based on execution result verification, utilizing execution feedback to verify and calibrate semantic deviations, thereby ensuring the semantic correctness of executable queries. Experimental results on the WebQSP and CWQ datasets demonstrate that our method achieves significant improvements in both query executability and answer accuracy, achieving state-of-the-art performance, particularly in complex multi-hop scenarios. Our code is available at https://github.com/ahu-zmh/EVER.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1747/
%P 37646-37663
Markdown (Informal)
[Execution as Verification: Fine-Grained Self-Correcting Reasoning for Complex KBQA](https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1747/) (Zhang et al., ACL 2026)
ACL