The whole (over)insistence on using the determiners in general seems to be a relatively recent innovation as well, the articles being a large part of it. I am talking about constructions like "he shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet" — why not just "he shoved hand into pocket and pulled out wallet"? The context is pretty self-evident, and if you really need to specify some deviation from it (he shoved his hand into someone else's pocket, but still pulled out his wallet), you always can do it by, you know, using the determiners; except now they actually will be non-redundant.
replyIndeed that begins to sound like so called caveman talk. He shove hand in pocket and pull out wallet.
replyAnd yet e.g. włożył rękę do kieszeni i wyjął portfel is a pretty natural-sounding Polish sentence. Grug trusts others not stupid.
reply> The further back you go in Indo-European languages, they don't have articles.
replyHeh, while we're discussing English, this annoys me.
"The further back you go" is a continuum, the effect you describe should be too.
> The further back you go, the fewer Indo-European languages have articles.
Or match a discontinuity with a discontinuity.
> If you go back beyond a certain point, Indo-European languages don't have articles.
I actually meant it as a continuum. In classical latin, ille and unus exist, but they are not articles. In the vulgar latin period circa 800ad, they are pretty close to articles. In modern romance they're articles.
replyYou can't say "beyond a certain point" because what point that is varies with geography.