Hi, Could you help ?

there is a sentence from The Economist that confuses me:

"A paper published last year by Karthik Rajkumar of LinkedIn and co-authors from academia found empirical evidence for the insight that underpins all kinds of networking—that, because they bring you new information, more infrequent and distant relationships (or “weak ties”) are more useful than close contacts. "

My question is what is the function of the second 'that' ? is it a appositive clause here used to modify 'empirical evidence' ？

Thanks for help.

Question

Hi, Could you help ?

there is a sentence from The Economist that confuses me:

"A paper published last year by Karthik Rajkumar of LinkedIn and co-authors from academia found empirical evidence for the insight that underpins all kinds of networking—that, because they bring you new information, more infrequent and distant relationships (or “weak ties”) are more useful than close contacts. "

My question is what is the function of the second 'that' ? is it a appositive clause here used to modify 'empirical evidence' ？

Thanks for help.

Answer

Good question.

This sentence could be confusing for someone who is not a native speaker.

The 2nd "that" refers to "the insight."

"The insight THAT more infrequent and distant relationships (or “weak ties”) are more useful than close contacts"

I suppose you could call "because they bring you new information" an appositive clause.

If an English professor answers your question, they may be able to add more clarity.

Good luck!