Limit = 1 may be confusing. The important thing is that in case of limit equals to 1 will produce only ONE substring. Ergo the only one substring will be the first one as well as the last one. Tnat the rest of the string (after the first delimiter) will be placed to the last substring. But last is the first and only one.
<?php
$output = $preg_split('(/ /)', '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8', 1);
echo $output[0] //will return whole string!;
$output = $preg_split('(/ /)', '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8', 2);
echo $output[0] //will return 1;
echo $output[1] //will return '2 3 4 5 6 7 8';
?>