Language is not designed in a lab, nor is it handed down from on high. While many of the quirks and complexities of language may strike the adult second language learner as difficult and illogical, they would not be instantiated in the language were they not in some way reflective of the developing child's mind and social interaction. Understanding language structure then can help us to understand how children and adults think and how people shape language. In my dissertation I examine the emergence of grammatical structure in one of the youngest languages known to science: Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). In each of my studies I compare four participant groups: adult homesigners who have not learned NSL, and there cohorts (generations) of Nicaraguan Sign Language signers. In my first study I find both a strongly verb-final word order has emerged in NSL, as well as regularity the ordering of nominal arguments. In my second study I find that younger signers more often use space grammatically to differentiate who did what to whom than do older signers. In my last chapter I examine several interesting, but less frequent, grammatical patterns in the language. I also look at how all of these devices fit together to form one integrated system.