000168023 001__ 168023 000168023 005__ 20260123152958.0 000168023 0247_ $$2doi$$a10.5964/bioling.21633 000168023 0248_ $$2sideral$$a147634 000168023 037__ $$aART-2026-147634 000168023 041__ $$aeng 000168023 100__ $$0(orcid)0000-0001-6891-6275$$aMendívil Giró, José Luis$$uUniversidad de Zaragoza 000168023 245__ $$aOn the Limits of Functionalism: A Reply to Bierl (2025) 000168023 260__ $$c2026 000168023 5060_ $$aAccess copy available to the general public$$fUnrestricted 000168023 5203_ $$aBernd Bierl eloquently proposes an ambitious synthesis towards biological linguistics. This synthesis aims to establish a new bio-ethological linguistics based on 4E cognition. It considers the foundational ethology of authors like Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen to be its biological basis. Rather than developing the biolinguistics inspired by Noam Chomsky, which also has its roots in early 20th-century European ethology, the author considers it an inadequate naturalization and suggests subsuming it under a conception of language as behavior, within the context of embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended (4E) cognition. This reply presents some critical observations on this proposal, highlighting the inadequate interpretation of the biolinguistic approach and the potential shortcomings of the proposed research program. 000168023 540__ $$9info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess$$aby$$uhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.es 000168023 655_4 $$ainfo:eu-repo/semantics/article$$vinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 000168023 7102_ $$13013$$2575$$aUniversidad de Zaragoza$$bDpto. Lingüíst.y Liter.Hispán.$$cÁrea Lingüística General 000168023 773__ $$g20 (2026), [7 pp.]$$pBiolinguistics$$tBiolinguistics$$x1450-3417 000168023 8564_ $$s143023$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/168023/files/texto_completo.pdf$$yVersión publicada 000168023 8564_ $$s1364516$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/168023/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon$$xicon$$yVersión publicada 000168023 909CO $$ooai:zaguan.unizar.es:168023$$particulos$$pdriver 000168023 951__ $$a2026-01-23-14:33:36 000168023 980__ $$aARTICLE