Chunking of text invloves dividing a text into syntactically correlated words.

Eg: He ate an apple to satiate his hunger. [NP He ] [VP ate] [NP an apple] [VP to satiate] [NP his hunger]

Eg: दरवाज़ा खुल गया [NP दरवाज़ा] [VP खुल गया]

Chunk Types

The chunk types are based on the syntactic category part. Besides the head a chunk also contains modifiers (like determiners, adjectives, postpositions in NPs).

The basic types of chunks in English are:

Sl. no.	Chunk type	Tag Name
1.	Noun	NP
2.	Verb	VP
3.	Adverb	ADVP
4.	Adjectivial	ADJP
5.	Prepositional	PP

The basic Chunk Tag Set for Indian Languages

Sl.no.	Chunk Type	Tag Name
1.	Noun Chunk	NP
2.1	Finite Verb Chunk	VGF
2.2	Non-Finite Verb Chunk	VGNF
2.3	Verb Chunk (Gerund)	VGNN
3	Adjectival Chunk	JJP
4	Adverb Chunk	RBP

Noun Chunks

Noun Chunks will be given the tag NP and include non-recursive noun phrases and postposition for Indian languages and preposition for English. Determiners, adjectives and other modifiers will be part of the noun chunk.

Eg: (इस/DEM किताब/NN में/PSP)NP
'this' 'book' 'in'
((in/IN the/DT big/ADJ room/NN))NP

Verb Chunks

The verb chunks are marked as VP for English, however they would be of several types for Indian languages. A verb group will include the main verb and its auxiliaries, if any.

For English:

I (will/MD be/VB loved/VBD)VP

The types of verb chunks and their tags are described below.

1. VGF Finite Verb Chunk

The auxiliaries in the verb group mark the finiteness of the verb at the chunk level. Thus, any verb group which is finite will be tagged as VGF. For example,

Eg: मैंने घर पर (खाया/VM)VGF
'I erg''home' 'at''meal' 'ate'

2. VGNF Non-finite Verb Chunk

A non-finite verb chunk will be tagged as VGNF.

Eg: सेब (खाता/VM हुआ/VAUX)VGNF लड़का जा रहा है
'apple' 'eating' 'PROG' 'boy' go' 'PROG' 'is'

3. VGNN Gerunds

A verb chunk having a gerund will be annotated as VGNN.

Eg: शराब (पीना/VM)VGNN सेहत के लिए हानिकारक है sharAba
'liquor' 'drinking' 'heath' 'for' 'harmful' 'is'

JJP/ADJP Adjectival Chunk

An adjectival chunk will be tagged as ADJP for English and JJP for Indian languages. This chunk will consist of all adjectival chunks including the predicative adjectives.

Eg:

वह लड़की है (सुन्दर/JJ)JJP

The fruit is (ripe/JJ)ADJP

Note: Adjectives appearing before a noun will be grouped together within the noun chunk.

RBP/ADVP Adverb Chunk

This chunk will include all pure adverbial phrases.

Eg:

वह (धीरे-धीरे/RB)RBP चल रहा था
'he' 'slowly' 'walk' 'PROG' 'was'

He walks (slowly/ADV)/ADVP

PP Prepositional Chunk

This chunk type is present for only English and not for Indian languages. It consists of only the preposition and not the NP argument.

Eg:

(with/IN)PP a pen

IOB prefixes

Each chunk has an open boundary and close boundary that delimit the word groups as a minimal non-recursive unit. This can be formally expressed by using IOB prefixes: B-CHUNK for the first word of the chunk and I-CHUNK for each other word in the chunk. Here is an example of the file format:

Tokens	POS	Chunk Tags
He	PRP	B-NP
Ate	VBD	B-VP
An	DT	B-NP
Apple	NN	I-NP
To	To	B-VP
Satiate	VB	I-VP
His	PRP β	B-NP
Hunger	NN	I-NP