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This paper investigates the morpho-phonological differences between the members of related noun-verb pairs in Catalan Sign Language. Like parallel investigations in other sign languages, our experimental work provides evidence that the major differentiating factors between related nouns and verbs materialize in the movement component of signs and non-manual markers, thus providing empirical support to the hypothesis that most of noun-verb pairs have different morpho-phonological properties. We distinguish different types of movements, which we categorize into four regular morphological subgroups. We also take into account a fifth group that shows no apparent movement distinction. Concerning non-manual markers, we provide empirical evidence that nouns are mostly produced simultaneously with mouthing, in contrast to verbs, which in a smaller proportion are produced mainly with mouth gestures. Crucially, the fifth group presents the largest ratio of mouthing for nouns and even for verbs. We address these findings within an exo-skeletal theoretical syntactic approach (Borer 2005a,b, 2013, 2014). ; We acknowledge the financial support for our research. M.Teresa Espinal's contribution has been made possible by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and FEDER Funds (FFI2017-82547-P) and Generalitat de Catalunya (2017SGR634), as well as by an ICREA Academia fellowship. Josep Quer's contribution has been made possible by the SIGN-HUB project, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 693349, the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and FEDER Funds (FFI2015-68594-P), and the Government of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017SGR1478).