From a historical point of view English connectives may be divided into two classes: demonstrative determinatives and indefinite determinatives. These form, as it were, the two main currents with which the English subordinate constructions have been drifted down from their earliest stage of parataxis. In OE the demonstrative determinatives included se (>that), with its inflected forms, panne (>then), paer (>there), swa (>so), swelc (>such), etc. In performing the function as determinatives it was more usual that they were intensified in double forms. Se was often accompanied by the indeclinable particle pe, whose origin was also demonstrative. Swa and swelc were usually employed correlatively with paet, neuter singular of se. The indefinite determinatives included the following words derived from the indefinite stem *hwa-: hwa (>who), hwat (>what), hwelc (>which), hwfier (>whether), hwanne (>when), hweer (>where), etc. Besides the function of introducing dependent questions, as in the case of hweet and hwee2er, they were used as determinatives, usually intensified by the correlative demonstratives swa ... swa, e.g. swa hwa swa. Already in the OE period the duplicated type peer ... paer by employing the indefinite hweer instead of the demonstrative paer in the subordinate clause. Through the ME and Mod E periods the two kinds of OE determinatives have undergone considerable changes, both formal and functional. As to the demonstrative determinatives, (I) the two typical ones paet and pe, which had early weakened their original demonstrative nature and been developed into merely linking particles, have had their function inherited by the one modern connective that. (2) The characteristic correlative type has survived in ModE, as in the case of the ... the, so (...) that, such (...) that, etc. (3) The old duplicated forms have been supplanted by the differentiated forms, such as it ... that, those (...) who, as ... so, etc. (4) The OE temporal demonstrative janne has been weakened into the abstract connective than. (5) The intensified demonstrative al-swa (=quite so) has turned into the common connective as. Finally (6) the new demonstrative determinative like, shortened from like as (if), has revived the old determinative function. The tendency of indefinite determinatives superseding demonstrative determinatives has been furthered in and after the ME period, especially by the imitation of the Latin models. (I) While the single indefinite who has retained its determinative use in the archaic style of Mod E, the more usual type swa hwa swa has been popularized in the new indefinite form whoever. (2) The determinative with more restrictive reference, which, has first established its function as a definite relative, mostly shortened from which that or the which. (3) As definite relatives who and which have been differentiated in use. (4) The double type, then ... then or there ... there, through the differentiated when ... then or where ... there, has been simplified into when or where. (5) The originally indefinite pronoun whether has turned into a mere conjunctive particle introducing a dependent question or a concessive clause. Of the two currents above more idiomatic features proper to the native English seem to be preserved in the first one.
