>perl -wMstrict -le
"for my $s (qq{abandon/to\t(a road)\t},
            qq{abandon/to\txxx abandon/to yyy \t},
           ) {
   print qq{'$s'};
   (my $t = $s) =~ s{ \A ([^\t]+) (\t [^\t]* \1 [^\t]* \t) }{$2}xms;
   print qq{1 '$1'   2 '$2'} if defined($1) and defined($2);
   print qq{'$t' \n};
   }
"
'abandon/to     (a road)        '
'abandon/to     (a road)        '

'abandon/to     xxx abandon/to yyy      '
1 'abandon/to'   2 '    xxx abandon/to yyy      '
'       xxx abandon/to yyy      '