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Currently reading this article, whose 1st paragraph says,

Three words encapsulate the British media's collective failure to report on the country's withdrawal from the European Union: Get Brexit done. It was the official slogan of this year's Conservative Party conference, that odd gathering of lobbyists, politicians, and party faithful that takes place every autumn. In the past few weeks, several otherwise normal-seeming people have said it to me, unprompted: The thing is, we just need to get Brexit done.

Question is 1

Is the first that functioning as a demonstrative pronoun?

Now,

It was the official slogan of this year's Conservative Party conference,

Okay.

If the first that is demonstrative pronoun, why would the next 2 words and sentence, which are, politicians, and party faithful that takes place every autumn, follow independently each by each? I grammatically lost here so that I am unable to comprehend this part.

Question 2

If the first that is relative pronoun, it would be hard to grasp the structure of the continuing words, or phrases whatever, from the point of the view of the grammatical meaning.

Could someone help me understand this strange ( so it seems to me ) and complex line?

Thank you in advance so much!.

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1 Answer 1

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The first that is a determiner. The phrase "that odd gathering" refers back to "party conference".

The second "that" is relative, it introduces the relative clause describing the gathering: "the gathering ... that takes place every autumn".

So we have a noun phrase "that odd gathering" which is modified by a prepositional phrase "of lobbyists, journalists and party faithful" and further modified by a relative clause. You could argue that "...which takes place..." is prescribed by those who consider "that" to introduce restrictive relative clauses. This sentence is evidence that those people are wrong.

This whole phrase: "that odd... every autumn" is placed in apposition to "this year's Conservative party confernce". The bold phrase describes the conference.

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