Killing "V n to death" construction

Form

NP
Agressor
Verb
NP
Victim
to death

Examples

Agressor She
Verb stabbed
Victim Ben
to death [to death]
with a pair of dress-making scissors.
Agressor Goodfellow
Verb clubbed
Victim [his wife]
to death [to death.]
Agressor [The Inquisition]
had
Verb burned
Victim [Giordano Bruno]
to death [to death.]

Meaning

An Agressor causes a Victim to die as a result of physical harm.

Roles

Agressor
The person that causes harm to the Patient.
Victim
The person that dies as a result of the Agent's agression.

Frames

Cause_harm ( Agent, Victim )
Death ( Protagonist )

Inherits from

Sub-constructions

Lexical items ( Verb slot)

Killing starve No dog is so obstinate as to starve itself to death. Hit_target shoot He once shot a man to death in the parking lot of a bar. Cause_harm batter Michael Pearson, 19, of Leeds, battered 19-year-old Dean Fisher to death after meeting him in a pub. beat A gang of ruffians violently beat a Beijing University postgraduate to death. blast A man armed with a 12-bore sawn-off shotgun blasted his ex-partner to death in front of their two young sons before turning the weapon on himself. burn The Inquisition had burned Giordano Bruno to death for daring to say that he did not believe in transubstantiation. choke I nearly choked Susan to death while syringing cranberry juice into her mouth today. club Goodfellow clubbed his wife to death with a pick-axe handle as she sat yelling abuse at him. crush If you rolled over in your sleep, you'd crush me to death! gore An elephant has gored a tourist to death in a Ugandan national park after the man, carrying an 8-year-old boy in his arms, approached the animal's calf. kick A man's been found guilty of kicking his ex-girlfriend's dog to death at her home. knife A boy of 14 knifed his older brother to death in a row over a scratched CD. peck If a bird appears in the coop with a spot of blood on them, all the other birds peck it to death. spear She would raise the hue and cry, in between spearing him to death with a pitchfork. stab She stabbed Ben to death with a pair of dress-making scissors and then tried to kill herself. stone Stoning women to death for adultery is barbaric. torture Raleigh King tortured Don Lyon to death while he dragged out the truth about where the emerald ring was hidden.

Phraseological constructions