[Lexicog] Nouns

[Greg and Heather Mellow]

Hi Everyone,

I have a question about noun phrases.

According to my "old fashioned" training, a noun is a plain word (whatever that might mean) and a noun phrase is the noun together with any combination of modifiers that lump together with the noun. (The secret of what defined a noun was never revealed to us.)

The point is though, that combinations of words were thought to be noun phrases.

Thus 'big dog' and 'hot dog' are both noun phrases.

An alternative view is that there are things which we might call complex nouns. In this view 'hot dog' is a complex noun.

So when label the part of speech for 'hot dog' in my dictionary, should I put n.phr or n ? 

How do you label fixed noun expressions that refered to a particular 'thing'.

Regards, Greg

PS The real example I am looking at is ngerengere arito, cicada (literally screamscream sun / sun screamers)
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