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"Tom talked about the phenomenon that youngsters like going shopping nowadays has sparked off a debate." Is this sentence grammatically correct? First, I would like to know whether that can connect two clauses like that. Without the last part "has sparked off a debate", it's probably correct.
Second, I reckon the tense use is correct despite three tenses in a sentence, otherwise please let me know.
The question was answered (I believe correctly) in the comments:
No the sentence is not grammatical. The tenses aren't the problem. The usual way to construct something like this would be to say "[Something happened], which has sparked off a debate". Add the pronoun "which".
The actual assertion "Tom talked about the phenomenon that youngsters like going shopping nowadays" is a perfectly good sentence. But you can't use that as the subject in the construction "[Something] has sparked off a debate."
I reckon the tense use is correct despite three tenses in a sentence
In a long sentence that includes various parts, there is no rule whatsoever that all the tenses must match. Consider: "He said, that they will go". Past + future.
This particular use of 'that' (at least, as far as I can tell) is as a pronoun to introduce a restrictive relative clause, for example "the phenomenon that caused the dinosaurs to die out".
But your whole statement is an ungrammatical mess. What is the phenomenon - that 'youngsters like shopping', or that there is a debate about it? There is no point in addressing your supplemental question about tenses unless it made sense.
