American Sign Language Stokoe
People simply thought sign language was an extension of English.
MJ Bienvenue
“I remember the day when I finally realized ASL is indeed a language—the day my life changed. It is hard to imagine me signing ASL all my life but needing a person like [Stokoe] to recognize that it is a language. It takes a genius to be objective and notice things so obvious and so close to us, and that’s what [Stokoe] was, a genius.”
ASL had its own grammatical properties
Builds Signs
Morphology
Syntax
Phonology
Like words, signs must be categorized into parts in
order to perceive their meanings.
combination of handshapes, locations, and movements. 
Handshape: how the fingers are extended and bent in a particular sign or does it have some fingers extended (Tab/Tabula)
Location: where on the body or in space is the sign being made? (dez or designator)
Movement: how does the hand (or hands) move? (sig or signation).
Identified 19 handshapes, 12 locations and 24 movements present in sign language
Palm orientation
Non-manual signals or facial behaviors
a study of word formation, of how words are formed to build new words or signs
in both spoken English and ASL, are combined to create a new word, or compounds.
ASL compounds are created from two separate signs, which then work together like one sign
EX. HOME, which emerged from SLEEP and EAT
facial and body behavior that determine sentence types