Sentence:  Chewing it over with his colleagues and in his own mind , he reaches a tentative identification of the question - tentative because it may change as he explores it further and because , if no tolerable <WSD>answer</WSD> can be found , it may have to be changed into one which can be answered . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a statement that solves a problem or explains how to solve the problem