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

[Andy Bach]

"He frequently omits modals and auxiliaries and enjoys inhabiting a kind of
beatific flowing present from which he may pluck ideas about the future and
experiences from the past without the bother of a grammatical change to
mark the departure of time and tense."

from the languagelog link at the bottom - the comments are pretty good too
- though the best may be the slightly deflating:
He said something that we can interpret in a way that makes sense or a way
that makes no sense. Which should we choose? He's not saying he has a good
relationship with his North Korean counterpart. He's saying that under some
unspecified circumstances he could have such a relationship. That's all.
It's not a huge or even unlikely claim, and it may even display a glimmer
of goodwill.

though his delusional sense of importance is supported by the former
interpretation.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
Date: Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 9:41 AM
Subject: WSJ vs. Trump on "I('d)"
To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu


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.”
===========================

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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a

Andy Bach,
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