Can you please explain the use of “in what” in this sentence below?

Question

I couldn’t figure out the grammatical role of “in what” in the sentence below. What does “in” refer to in this case? Can someone explain it please ?

Burroughs killed Vollmer in what he first admitted to and shortly thereafter denied as a drunken attempt at playing William Tell.

gorlux · Answer

"in what" and "as" bracket a parenthetical clause describing Burroughs's confession and then non-confession of the killing.

This same information could have been introduced with ", which" or actually placed in parentheses "(which . . . denied)".

As Lawler notes, the sentence makes sense without it, which is part of the definition of a parenthetical clause, although some potentially useful information is left out.

Can you please explain the use of “in what” in this sentence below?

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