Although some research on ASL syntax has been done, the field still lacks consensus on even the most basic questions regarding ASL phrase structure. Many theoretical controversies may, in fact, be a consequence of inadequate means for written transcription and reporting of visual-gestural data. This has precluded both the replicability of results and accessibility of the raw data for direct inspection by the scientific community.
Glosses are inconsistent and frequently ambiguous or misleading.
Reliance on glosses may well have given rise to incompatible and contradictory theoretical claims found in the literature. Thus, in conjunction with our syntactic research, we are currently developing a linguistically oriented computerized multimedia database of ASL that allows simultaneous access to raw video data and to representations of that data in linguistically useful formats.