[Ads-l] WSJ vs. Trump on "I('d)"

[Laurence Horn]

Apologies if someone has already posted to the list on this; if so, I missed it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/us/politics/trump-wall-street-journal-fake-news.html

PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump on Sunday morning ratcheted up a dispute with The Wall Street Journal, accusing the newspaper of purposely misquoting him as saying in an interview that he has a good relationship with the leader of North Korea.

In two tweets from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., the president applied a familiar denigrating term — “fake news” — to a Journal report on Thursday that said Mr. Trump had boasted during an interview: “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un. I have relationships with people. I think you people are surprised.”

Mr. Trump insisted that he had actually started his sentence with the contraction “I’d,” not “I,” which would change the meaning from a surprising boast of an existing relationship into a prediction that he could have a good relationship with the dictator if he wanted it.

Mr. Trump’s attack came hours after Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, posted on Twitter what she called the “official audio showing WSJ misquoting @POTUS.” She also posted an image with the words “FAKE NEWS” in a bright red banner and saying: “THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. FAKE NEWS IS AT IT AGAIN. FALSELY QUOTING PRESIDENT TRUMP.”
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Apparently the analysts have not yet determined the presence or absence of the mood indicator.  When I read the Times piece, I figured Mark Liberman is (or would be) on the case, and I was right.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=36251


LH
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