Generalized associative law thumb|In the absence of the associative property, five factors , ,, , result in a Tamari lattice of order four, possibly different products. If a binary operation is associative, repeated application of the operation produces the same result regardless of how valid pairs of parentheses are inserted in the expression. This is called the generalized associative law.
Generalized associative law thumb|In the absence of the associative property, five factors , ,, , result in a Tamari lattice of order four, possibly different products. If a binary operation is associative, repeated application of the operation produces the same result regardless of how valid pairs of parentheses are inserted in the expression This is called the generalized associative law.