as this thread is going on my understanding of articles theme goes in waves. i liked the idea of cadences...than i got confused with "the/no article street"...now this thing about "personal proximity" - excelent!

in the end it is all as my British supervisor used to say to me: "One just fells where to put an article". i hope the (?) Native Speakers will forgive me putting wrong articles in wrong places.

do articleless languages suffer from their absence?
not that mutch. but those who know English do say sometimes
in order to emphsize: day mne the knigu (give me the book)