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I have come across a conjugation of 死ぬ verb which I've never heard before. It is 死ぬる, I have heard it in a TV show, you can see the relevant part in this video.

Is this a depreciated form? If so, what meaning does it have? Can you use it in an example sentence?
Or is it just a made up conjugation for making rhyme in the poem?

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In classical Japanese, 死ぬ is an irregular verb (ナ行変格活用動詞). Its principal parts are as follows:

  • Irrealis (未然形): 死な〜
  • Continuative (連用形): 死に〜
  • Predicative (終止形): 死ぬ
  • Attributive (連体形): 死ぬる
  • Realis (已然形): 死ぬれ〜
  • Imperative (命令形): 死ね

The difference between the predicative and attributive forms is roughly analogous to the difference between 〜だ and 〜な for the adjectivial nouns in modern Japanese. Here is an example of 死ぬる as used in classical Japanese:

死【し】ぬる子は 眉目【みめ】よし

The face of a dying child is always beautiful.

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  • It is strange that I'm first time hearing this attributive form. Can you please give a few other examples with different verbs.
    – hkBattousai
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 19:52
  • The only remnant of this distinction in modern Japanese is 〜だ／〜な, as I already mentioned.
    – Zhen Lin
    Commented Mar 13, 2012 at 20:03
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    Note that sinuru still exists in some dialects. For example, you can still hear it in Kumamoto.
    – Dono
    Commented Mar 14, 2012 at 2:00
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    @hkBattousai question/answers on attributive/predicative japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/4375/…
    – dainichi
    Commented Mar 14, 2012 at 6:08

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