Noncompositional

What are the restrictions, if any, on the “[noun (phrase)] [conjunction] [clause]” when it has a conditional interpretation? The most commonly cited illustration of this construction is one more step and I’ll shoot. IIRC, the CGEL describes this construction as a fragment plus clause, with various (pragmatically-derived/enriched) interpretations, not all of them conditional. But it seems like some very particular noun phrase must be in the first slot in order to get the right interpretation.

In particular, it seems that any NP that contains “set-modification” words works: more, another, additional, less, fewer. These can of course be modified with numbers. And, just plain enumerated sets are mostly fine, though they are interpreted as having a meaning of “more”: (just) three hybrids and I’ll be satisfied (e.g., someone wanting to see three more hybrids drive by before going on to do something else).

Some things definitely don’t work. You can’t say a lot of illicit magazines and I’ll punish them to describe a situation where you promise to punish someone if it is discovered that they were hiding a bunch of Playboy magazines. It seems really strange, though barely possible, to out of the blue say Noam Chomsky, or I’m outta there if you want to say that you’ll only attend a lecture if Chomsky is the lecturer (or the topic, or present in the audience, etc). This works if Noam Chomsky is an answer to a question, in which case it evokes the entire omitted proposition; then the conjunction would be between like types (Who do you want it to be? –(I want it to be) Noam Chomsky, or I’m outta there. Though, now that I think of it, this isn’t your straightforward conjunction either; it means something like NC had better be there, otherwise I’m outta there.)