Japanese

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Kanji in this term

Grade: 3
kun'yomi
Alternative spellings
氏ぬ (filter-avoidance)
4ぬ (filter-avoidance)

Etymology

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From Old Japanese, from Proto-Japonic *sinu. Appears in the oldest Japanese texts, including the Nihon Shoki of 720 CE and the Man'yōshū[1] of 759 CE.[2][3][4]

The (nu) ending historically had an irregular conjugation pattern, shared only by now-obsolete verb 往ぬ, 去ぬ (inu, go away; pass; disappear) and auxiliary verb (nu, indicating completion, generally reserved for non-intentional, spontaneous, or intransitive actions). The (nu) in verb 死ぬ was viewed as identical to the auxiliary,[4] and the verb 死ぬ initially was thus never conjugated with this auxiliary as an additional suffix.[2][3][4]

The auxiliary itself may have derived from the verb 往ぬ, 去ぬ (inu, go away; pass; disappear),[2][3][4] raising the possibility that the verb 死ぬ may have derived from a fusion of (shi, death) + 往ぬ, 去ぬ (inu, go away; pass; disappear).

The transition from the ナ行変格活用 (na-gyō henkaku katsuyō, na irregular conjugation) pattern to the regular 四段活用 (yodan katsuyō, quadrigrade conjugation) appears in texts from the Muromachi period (1336–1573).[2] The na irregular pattern persisted in increasingly limited use until the Meiji period (1868–1929).[3]

Pronunciation

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  • Tokyo pitch accent of conjugated forms of 「死ぬ
Source: Online Japanese Accent Dictionary
Stem forms
Terminal (終止形)
Attributive (連体形)
死ぬ [shìnú]
Imperative (命令形) 死ね [shìné]
Key constructions
Passive 死なれる なれる [shìnárérú]
Causative 死なせる なせる [shìnásérú]
Potential 死ねる ねる [shìnérú]
Volitional 死のう [shìnóꜜò]
Negative 死なない なない [shìnánáí]
Negative perfective 死ななかった ななかった [shìnánáꜜkàttà]
Formal 死にます にま [shìnímáꜜsù]
Perfective 死んだ んだ [shìńdá]
Conjunctive 死んで んで [shìńdé]
Hypothetical conditional 死ねば [shìnéꜜbà]

Verb

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() (shinuintransitive godan (stem () (shini), past ()んだ (shinda))

  1. to die
    ()にたいほど(くる)しい
    shinitai hodo kurushii
    so excruciating one wishes to die
    (だい)()(ひと)()なれる
    daiji na hito ni shinareru
    to have someone important die on you → to lose someone important
  2. (by extension) to die, to perish, to cease to be anymore
    (Can we add an example for this sense?)
  3. to become lifeless, to lack vitality, to show a lack of vigor
    ()()んだような(ひと)
    me ga shinda yō na hito
    person with dead eyes
    (literally, “person with eyes that appear to have died”)

Usage notes

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This Japanese verb denotes an instantaneous action. The -te / -de + iru grammatical form is usually described in English as equivalent to the present progressive. However, for Japanese instantaneous verbs, this -te / -de + iru grammatical form instead more commonly indicates that the action of the verb has completed, and the result of the verb is the new current state.

For instance, shinu specifically denotes the instantaneous action of dying, whereas the English verb die denotes more of a process. To express the idea of someone is now in the process of transitioning from alive to dead, English speakers would use the present continuous construction, someone is dying. However, the similar grammatical construction in Japanese, 誰か死んでいる (dare ka ga shinde iru), instead means that someone is dead. To express the process in Japanese, speakers use the alternative constructions 死んでいるところ (shinde iru tokoro da, literally it is the moment of dying) or 死にかけている (shinikakete iru, literally starting to die).

Conjugation

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Synonyms

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Antonyms

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Trivia

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死ぬ is the only modern Japanese verb which ends in (an older example is 去ぬ (inu, to go, to leave), which is now archaic). Accordingly, it is often used in textbooks to illustrate the conjugation pattern for 〜ぬ verbs.

References

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  1. ^
    c. 759, Man’yōshū, book 5, poem 889:
    , text here
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典(新装版) [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Matsumura, Akira (1995) 大辞泉 [Daijisen] (in Japanese), First edition, Tokyo: Shogakukan, →ISBN
  5. ^ NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tokyo: NHK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN
  6. ^ Kindaichi, Kyōsuke et al., editors (1997), 新明解国語辞典 [Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten] (in Japanese), Fifth edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN