A Prosodic Model of Sign Language Phonology  
Diane Brentari
The MIT Press
This book is intended in part to provide linguists and cognitive                 scientists who do not know sign language with a point of entry into the study of                 sign language phonology. At the same time, it presents a comprehensive theory of                 American Sign Language (ASL) phonology, while reviewing and building on alternative                 theories. One claim of this theoretical framework is that, because of sign                 language's visual/gestural phonetic basis, the consonant-like units and vowel-like                 units are expressed simultaneously with one another, rather than sequentially as in                 spoken languages. A second claim is that movements operate as the most basic                 prosodic units of the language. The author is concerned to show both the                 similarities and differences between signed and spoken languages, and to indicate                 some directions for future work in cognitive science that can be derived from her                 phonological model.