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.
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.