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"What did you try but spit out?"


That’s a regular case of across-the-board extraction from a coordination (where ‘try’ has a nominal direct object rather than a clausal complement):

What did you try ___ but spit ___ out?

The examples in the linked article involve extraction from just one coordinand, which is impossible in “real” coordinate structures.


Your examples are not ringing bells for me as a native speaker. The linguistics terms may or may not be confounding, but are too unfamiliar for me to discuss.

“Try, and [if successful] [do the thing].”


Sorry, I don't understand what you are getting at. What is the significance of the quoted sentence?




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