that

[tkacka15]

"However, a proposal that the shadow cabinet should agree that it was party policy to oppose airstrikes, and to assert this was in line with a conference motion passed in September, was thrown out." [From The Guardian.]

Is "that" a relative pronoun or a conjunction in a proposal that the shadow cabinet should agree, i.e. is a proposal that the shadow cabinet should agree a noun phrase or not in the above context?

Thank you.

 

[tkacka15]

It's a subordinator/conjunction.

If you can't replace it with 'which', then it's not a relative pronoun.

Thank you, Piscean, for the reply. My doubt about it is that "a proposal" may be an object of the verb "agree", in other words I wonder whether the verb "agree" is the transitive one here with its object "a proposal". I know that "agree" is mostly intransitive but there are transitive constructions with that verb too, e.g. They have agreed the pay offer.

 

[MikeNewYork]

American Heritage Dictionary disagrees. It lists two uses of "agree" followed by a "that clause" as transitive.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/agree

 

[MikeNewYork]

But, in my opinion, that gave the wrong message to the student. In the original sentence, I view both "that" clauses as noun clauses that function as direct objects.