More examples of verb phrases please ?

Dear teachers,

What’s the syntactic name of the following structures in English ? How can I get more examples of these ? 

A/  1)  Sylvester cried his eyes out.

2)  The dog barked him awake.

3)  Dora shouted herself hoarse.

4)  Well, the conclusion was that my mistress grumbled herself calm.

(What's the meaning of this sentence ?)

B/  1)  The floor had also been swept quite clean of debris.

2)  She was shaken awake by the earthquake.

(Are these called “unaccusative verbs" ?)

Dear Paco,

In fact I didn't leave blanks between the lines and I don't know why it has come up like this.

I tried to get through the links you gave me but nothing appeared on my screen. Would you please tell me what a resultative construction? And do you know where can I get more examples of these?

Many thanks and all the best,

Hela

Hello Hela

The file I linked is a pdf file. Have you got Acrobat Reader on your computer? If you haven't, it's impossible to access to the file. The essential part of what it tells is as follows:

An identifying characteristic of a resultative sentence is an AP(=adjectival phrase) or PP(=prepositional phrase) that occupies the normal position of a verbal argument, for instance the italicized phrases in (5).  We call this phrase the resultative phrase or RP.
(5)
          a. Herman hammered the metal flat. [RP = AP]
          b. The critics laughed the play off the stage. [RP = PP]
Resultatives must be distinguished from depictive or current-state phrases which look superficially like resultatives (EX : She handed him the towel wet), but which differ syntactically in that they are clear adjuncts, not argument phrases and semantically in that they do not designate states that are contingent on properties of the main verb: i.e., they do not designate results.
A resultative may contain a direct object, in which case the RP follows the object, as in (5); we call such cases "transitive resultatives." Or a resultative may lack a direct object, in which case the RP is immediately after the verb, as in (6); we call these "intransitive resultatives."5
(6) Intransitive resultatives
      a.   The pond froze solid. [RP=AP]
      b.   Bill rolled out of the room. [RP=PP]
In some transitive resultatives, the direct object is independently selected by the verb; in others it is not.  We refer to the former cases as "selected transitive resultatives" and the latter as "unselected transitive resultatives."
(7) Selected transitive resultatives
      a.   The gardener watered the flowers flat. [RP=AP]
              [cf. The gardener watered the flowers.]
      b.   Bill broke the bathtub into pieces. [RP=PP] 
              [cf. Bill broke the bathtub.]
(8) Unselected transitive resultatives
      a.   They drank the pub dry. [RP=AP]
               [cf. *They drank the pub.]　(Note that the sign * means the sentence is ungrammatical)
      b.   The professor talked us into a stupor. [RP=PP]
               [cf. *The professor talked us.]
A special case of unselected transitive resultatives has a reflexive object that cannot alternate with other NPs.  This is often called a "fake reflexive" (Simpson 1983).
(9) Fake reflexive resultatives
      a.   We yelled ourselves hoarse. [RP=AP]
                Unselected:  *We yelled ourselves.
                Does not alternate with other NPs: *We yelled Harry hoarse.
      b.   Harry coughed himself into insensibility. [RP=PP]
               Unselected: *Harry coughed himself.
               Does not alternate with other NPs:  *Harry coughed us into insensibility.
When RP = AP, it normally expresses a property.  Some cases of RP = PP also have this semantics, for example (7b), (8b), and (9b).  We refer to these two types collectively as "property resultatives"; when we need to differentiate them we refer to "AP property resultatives" and "PP property resultatives."  In other sentences with RP = PP, such as (5b) and (6b), the RP expresses a spatial path; we call such sentences "PP spatial resultatives."  There are arguably some adjectives that express spatial paths or configurations, such as "free" and "clear"; these may appear in a class of "AP spatial resultatives" such as "He jumped clear of the traffic".