These compounds are undoubtedly included for a reason, yet the idea that literal compounds might actually be essential to WordNet's usefulness may strike some as heretical on at least two fronts: first, the lexicon is a finite resource, while the space of compounds is potentially infinite; and at any rate, literal compounds can be created as needed from purely compositional principles (Hanks, 2004).
these retorts are valid only if we view WordNet as a dictionary, but of course it is much more than this.