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‘The rank of a statement form A will be
(@) 0, if A is 2 statement letter;
(b) the rank of the principal connective of A, otherwise.
‘We shall describe our procedure for eliminating parentheses by induction on the number
of occurrences of connectives in the statement form. (The description will appear com-
Plicated, but the simplicity of the procedure will become apparent after a few examples.)
Clearly, if A has no connectives, it is a statement letter and has no parentheses. Assume
that we have described the procedure for all statement forms having fewer than k
occurrences of connectives, and assume that A has k occurrences of connectives.
Case (i): A is a denial (1B). If B itself is of the form (716), then we apply our
procedure to (16) and omit the outer parentheses (if any) of the resulting expression,
obtaining some expression D. The final result is taken to be (1D). If B is not of the form
(116), and the application of our procedure to B yields E, then the final result is (71).
Case Ais (BC), where ais +»,-+, v or & We apply the procedure for eliminating
parentheses to B and €, obtaining B* and C*, At this stage we have (B*aC*). We drop
the outermost pair of parentheses (if any) from B* if the rank of « is greater than or equal
to the rank of B. We drop the outermost pair of parentheses (if any) from C* if the rank
of a is greater than the rank of C.
(II) After completion of (I), we omit the outermost pair of parentheses (if any).
Examples.
AL (101A),
Applying (1), Case (i), twice, we obtain (171A). Then by (II) we have 1A. In general, no
parentheses are needed to separate successive negations.
AZ ((AvB)~0).
‘The principal connective is +, of rank 4. Since (Av B) has rank 3, we obtain, by (1), Case (ii),
(AvB~0), and finally by (11), AvB~C.
190APPENDIX Al ELIMINATION OF PARENTHESES 191
AS. (AV (B>C)).
The principal connective is v, of rank 3, Since (BC) has rank 4, we do not drop the parentheses
from (B~C). Thus in this example (I) allows no elimination of parentheses, and by (II) we obtain
Av (EO).
AS. (UB 1A) © B) (1B) &C)),
= is the principal connective. Application of (I) to ((Bv A) ¢>B) yields (Bv A +> B), and application
of 'T to 1B. &C) yields (1B &C), Since the rank of <> is greater than that of +, we leave the outermost
pair of parentheses of (Bv A <> B). However, since the rank of & is less than that of -, we omit the
‘outermost pair of parentheses from (18 &C). The final result is (BV A © B) +> 1B &C.
AS WALB)VO.
The right-most v is the principal connective. Since (Av B) has rank equal to that of v, we may drop
she parentineses, obtaining (Av Bv C), and finally by (II), Av Bv C.
Ak IAv(BVO).
The left-most v is the principal connective. Since (B v C) has rank equal to that of v, we cannot drop
she parentheses. Thus (I) yields no elimination of parentheses, and by (II) we obtain Av (Bv 0).
The results given in Examples A.5 and A.6¢ illustrate the principle of association to the
left. Thus Av BvC stands for (Av B)vC). Likewise A+B C stands for ((A > B) *C),
and the same holds for the other binary connectives. Association to the left is due to our
agreemen’ that in (BC), we omit outer parentheses from B if rank (B)