StepGap: A Hybrid NLI-LLM Checker for Step-Level Evidence-Gap Detectionin Multi-Hop Question Answering
We present \textbf{StepGap}, a hybrid NLI-LLM decision tree that detects step-level evidence gaps in multi-hop QA and emits one of three typed labels: \textsc{Contradicted Claim} (CC), \textsc{Irrelevant Evidence} (IE), or \textsc{Missing Bridge} (MB), each tied to a concrete repair action. On 82 multi-hop questions (181 annotated steps, $κ{=}0.704$), StepGap reaches sF1$=$72.0, within the bootstrap confidence interval of an LLM-only baseline (70.1) but with a more decomposable structure: every StepGap stage \emph{hurts} F1 when removed, while three of four LLM-only removals \emph{improve} F1 -- a sign of \emph{competing-error cancellation}, where internal stages mask each other's errors....
| Authors | Yuelyu Ji, Zhuochun Li, Hui Ji et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 23 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 23 May 2026 |
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