diff --git a/spacy/syntax/iterators.pxd b/spacy/syntax/iterators.pxd
index 5c574426f..f5ea7e632 100644
--- a/spacy/syntax/iterators.pxd
+++ b/spacy/syntax/iterators.pxd
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 
 from spacy.tokens.doc cimport Doc
 
+cdef dict CHUNKERS
+
 cdef class DocIterator:
     cdef Doc _doc
 
diff --git a/spacy/syntax/iterators.pyx b/spacy/syntax/iterators.pyx
index 78679b8ce..b0edea36b 100644
--- a/spacy/syntax/iterators.pyx
+++ b/spacy/syntax/iterators.pyx
@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@ from spacy.tokens.token cimport Token
 
 from spacy.parts_of_speech cimport NOUN
 
+CHUNKERS = {'en':EnglishNounChunks, 'de':GermanNounChunks}
+
 # base class for document iterators
 cdef class DocIterator:
     def __init__(self, Doc doc):
diff --git a/spacy/syntax/parser.pyx b/spacy/syntax/parser.pyx
index c7b88d5b8..ba1f4f1b8 100644
--- a/spacy/syntax/parser.pyx
+++ b/spacy/syntax/parser.pyx
@@ -47,8 +47,7 @@ from ._parse_features cimport fill_context
 from .stateclass cimport StateClass
 from ._state cimport StateC
 
-from spacy.syntax.iterators cimport DocIterator, EnglishNounChunks, GermanNounChunks
-CHUNKERS = {'en':EnglishNounChunks, 'de':GermanNounChunks}
+from spacy.syntax.iterators cimport CHUNKERS, DocIterator, EnglishNounChunks, GermanNounChunks
 
 
 DEBUG = False
diff --git a/spacy/tests/tokens/test_noun_chunks.py b/spacy/tests/tokens/test_noun_chunks.py
index 55f484e62..cf72e9ce1 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/tokens/test_noun_chunks.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/tokens/test_noun_chunks.py
@@ -3,11 +3,11 @@ import numpy as np
 from spacy.attrs import HEAD, DEP
 from spacy.symbols import nsubj, dobj, punct, amod, nmod, conj, cc, root
 from spacy.en import English
-
+from spacy.syntax.iterators import EnglishNounChunks
 
 
 def test_not_nested():
-    nlp = English(parser=False)
+    nlp = English(parser=False, entity=False)
     sent = u'''Peter has chronic command and control issues'''.strip()
     tokens = nlp(sent)
     tokens.from_array(
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ def test_not_nested():
                 [-2, conj],
                 [-5, dobj]
             ], dtype='int32'))
+    tokens.noun_chunks = EnglishNounChunks
     for chunk in tokens.noun_chunks:
         print(chunk.text)
     word_occurred = {}
@@ -31,3 +32,4 @@ def test_not_nested():
             word_occurred[word.text] += 1
     for word, freq in word_occurred.items():
         assert freq == 1, (word, [chunk.text for chunk in tokens.noun_chunks])
+