おわる - Grammar Discussion

The sentence as a whole is in past tense, but “ん、で終わる言葉” means “a word ending in ん”, which is present continuous tense.

It’s that part of the sentence in particular that is meant to show that 終わる’s form can be changed.

Different example:
今終わる番組。The tv show that is just ending. (Present continuous ← this is the important point)
今終わる番組を半分だけ見ました。I only watched half of the tv show that is just ending. (Past tense)

(Actually, maybe it would be more natural to say 今終わってる番組. I’m not that well-versed in Japanese yet. But if that’s the case, it shows all the more that the form of 終わる can be changed. )

I found this NHK article explaining that 終わる is used instead of 終える because the latter was considered difficult to pronounce when using it as an auxiliary verb (like in this grammar point), so people began saying 終わる in spoken language, making 終わる a transitive verb in addition to an intransitive.

I hope I was able to understand the article correctly. If not, please let me know so I can delete/edit this comment to avoid causing extra confusion.

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