I have read and heard these kinds of sentences or utterances many times:
"It might be a stupid question but can fish breath?"
"I don´t know how to say this but you should change your life!"
I don´t understand how to grammatically analyze this correctly. Are these introductory phrases (and therefore a comma has to follow before, "but"!?) followed by a question or an imperative sentence or is a different kind of thing? I can´t make sense of it otherwise because, "This might be a stupid question" can´t really stand by itself for example, can it?
A further question I have is if you have to pose the question or the imperative statement right after, "but". For example:
"It might be a stupid question but it is a question nonetheless: Do fish breath?"
or even
"It might be a stupid question but it is a question I might not pose otherwise. Last year I......and then......(a number of sentences might follow). Do fish breath?"