The present article contains the results of study on unidirectionality of grammaticalization which is understood as a shift from lexical to grammatical signs. The research aims to find out and describe present approaches to the unidirectionality idea and identify the current tendency in attitudes towards this property of grammaticalization. The research methodology includes a content analysis of approaches to the unidirectionality issue, their generalization and analysis of some units questioning the unidirectionality of grammaticalization. The relevance of grammaticalization studies is due to a growing interest of Russian and foreign linguists in grammatical changes, current differences in identifying the main properties of such change as grammaticalization and terminological variation. The theoretical framework of this study is based on the research by T. Givn, Ch. Lehmann, T. Lindstrm, E. Traugott, B. Heine and other famous linguists working in the field of grammaticalization. It is noted that the issue of unidirectionality of grammaticalization is almost ignored in Russian linguistics where unidirectionality is often seen as an integral property of this process. The study results have shown the tendency to accepting the unidirectionality idea and a controversial nature of some examples used to overturn this idea. Such examples include English infinitival to , the verb to dare and the suffix -ish . It has been established that the terms degrammaticalization and lexicalization used to refer to processes opposite to grammaticalization can be considered reasonable depending on their understanding and the meaning of the term grammaticalization. This study is a part of a more extensive research aimed to describe and analyze the mechanisms of grammaticalization in Germanic languages.

The research aims to prove the similarity between the processes of grammaticalization of relational nouns into spatial prepositions in Germanic languages of different structure. The paper is original in that it is the first to carry out a comparative analysis of grammaticalization of the English and German nouns ‘side’ and ‘Stelle’ into prepositions with the use of etymological dictionaries. The research results have shown that the process of grammaticalization of these nouns exposed to common ways of grammati-calization is similar and caused by the same grammaticalization mechanisms: desemanticization of original lexical units, decategorialization and phonetic erosion. As a result of grammaticalization of the nouns ‘side’ and ‘Stelle’ (place), the prepositions beside and anstelle von ‘instead of’ have appeared through fusion. It is noted that in the German language, grammaticalization leads to the loss of more grammatical catego-ries (gender, number, case), as the grammatical category of gender does not exist in English. The research proves the role of original meanings of content words in grammaticalization in two languages of different structure belonging to the same language group.

The research aims to prove the effectiveness of a comparative method in teaching French as the second foreign language at a non-linguistic university based on English at different language proficiency levels. The cases of using the comparative analysis in teaching French based on English at different language proficiency levels have been described and the efficiency of this method has been evaluated. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time the key aspects of comparing French and English on phonetic, grammatical and lexical levels have been identified on the basis of the experience of teaching French as the second foreign language to students training in tourism and hotel business. As a result, the effectiveness of the comparative method used in teaching French has been proved on the condition of students’ confident knowledge of English as the first foreign language. It has been stated that the comparative method has more advantages than disadvantages. The advantages of the comparative method include overcoming students’ psychological barrier and increasing their motivation, eliminating the difficulties in learning the phonetic system of the French language and students’ easier acquisition of common vocabulary and terminology of tourism and hospitality industry.

The paper justifies the thesis that context generalization serves as a mechanism of grammaticalization in the Germanic languages of different structures. Scientific originality of the study involves a comparative analysis of the context generalization process in the English and German languages. The conducted research allows concluding that the English and German grammaticalized subordinating conjunctions are equally subjected to the process of context generalization and acquire new meanings, which justifies the key role of context in the process of grammaticalization in the two Germanic languages of different structures.