Stokoe on noun and verb

[Nobukatsu Minoura]

Dear Colleagues,

It seems like "cheating" and I feel ashamed.  I should read all the relevant
literature and find it myself.  But I would really appreciate it if somebody
could help me.

At the symposium commemorating his 80th birthday at the Gallaudet
University, Bill Stokoe on the podium said that "the handshape of a sign is
a noun and the movement of a sign is a verb" or something to that effect.

A good portion of classifiers seem to fit his description.  But I remember
that he was not restricting his argument only on the classifiers but he was
talking about "all the signs."  It seems metaphorically and/or
etymologically true to some extent if not necessarily synchronically and
practically true.

Can anybody point to where he has written on this?

Thank you very much in advance.

Nobukatsu Minoura
Linguistics
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
minoura at tufs.ac.jp
nobum at gol.com