In this paper, as a commentary on the papers in this special issue, the nat
ure of constraints is discussed in terms of the comparison between inferenc
es in biology and in word learning. Young children's inferences in biology
could be constrained by three sources of information: factual knowledge, ex
pectations based on a theory, and ontological knowledge. For example, young
children's inference about the length of noses could be constrained by the
facts the children know about the animals, the similarity between the anim
als and humans, and the ontological distinction between living things and n
onliving things. In the same way, young children might figure out word mean
ings by linguistic and pragmatic knowledge, expectations of word meanings (
e.g., the whole-object assumption), and ontological knowledge. Interactions
among these sources of knowledge are documented by the papers in this spec
ial issue and related studies. It is argued that learning biases such as th
e whole-object assumption could not be induced only by linguistic and pragm
atic cues in a social context, but should be regarded as a product of the i
nteraction between a social context and children's theories.