In long compound statements, the syntax rules require the use of parentheses. The use of parentheses clears up the ambiguity. In general, use parentheses wherever there is even a remote possibility of multiple meanings. The number of unique statements in a set is determined by the number of truth values. So a sentential system based on two simple statements can have no more than sixteen unique compound statements.
Science always prefers the most parsimonious theory.
The truth values of long, compound statements can be derived by bivariate column reduction. Then copy the values of P and Q from the left-most column into columns 1,3, and 6. In general, however, we perform operations within parentheses before performing other operations.