It examines the handshape inventory of SHSL in terms of its underlying featural specifications, phonetic realization and phonological processes such as assimilation, epenthesis, deletion, coalescence, non-dominant hand spread and weak drop. The authors define the role of the prosodic hierarchy in SHSL and analyze the linguistic functions of non-manual markers.

This systematic investigation not only contributes to our understanding of SHSL itself, but also informs typological research on sign languages in the world.