As Soon As Possible: The Implicature

Speranza

It was in a television programme, a chapter of a well-known series, that something like the following conversation took place:

A: I'll pay you back as soon as possible.

B: Of course you'll do. There's no way you can do it as soon as it is not possible.

Or perhaps:

A: Don't worry. I will pay you back -- as soon as possible.

B: I KNOW. No way you can do it as soon as it is IMpossible.

--- So there are various variations.

As a Griceian, or as Griceians, we may need the logical form. The 'possible' obviously involves a modal operator. What, after Kripke & company, has been symbolised as a diamond:

<> p

The phrase 'a. s. a. p' is then in co-variance with its negation

~ <> p

'impossible'

or

it is not the case as soon as possible p.

There may be readings of 'a.s.a.p.' in which it does NOT violate one of what Grice calls 'conversational rules' (or 'desiderata' in earlier versions of his now infamous "Conversation" lectures), where the idea of 'implicature' is introduced.

An implicature is an INTENTIONAL extra-logical ingredient to the 'conversational pool', and it may be argued that the user or utterer of 'a.s.a.p' has none of that in mind. Or not.

In any case, it does seem to flout a conversational desiderata -- informativeness, trustworthiness, relevance, perspicuity (Grice, echoing Kant, managed to find FOUR different conversational categories matching Kant's famous quartette of quantitas-qualitas-relatio-modus). Or not.