>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $s = qq{abandon/to\t(a road)\t};
 $s =~ s{ ([^\t]*) \t ([^\t]*) \1 ([^\t]*) \t }{\t$2$1$3\t}xms;
 print qq{1 '$1'  2 '$2'  3 '$3'};
 print qq{'$s'};
"
1 'o'  2 '(a r'  3 'ad)'
'abandon/t      (a road)        '