use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dump 'dd';

my $sentence = "this is the text to play with";
my $ngramWindow_MIN = 2;
my $ngramWindow_MAX = 3;

my $word  = qr/(?<word>\b\S+)(?:\s|$)/;
my $ngram = join '', 
    $word          x   $ngramWindow_MIN, 
    qr/(?:$word)?/ x ( $ngramWindow_MAX - $ngramWindow_MIN );

my $re = qr/$ngram(?{
    dd \@{^CAPTURE};
    dd $-{word};
    dd ${^CAPTURE_ALL}{word};
    print "\n";
    
    
})(*F)/;

$sentence =~ /$re/g;

__END__

["this", "is", "the"]
["this", "is", "the"]
"this"

["this", "is"]
["this", "is", undef]
"this"

["is", "the", "text"]
["is", "the", "text"]
"is"

["is", "the"]
["is", "the", undef]
"is"

["the", "text", "to"]
["the", "text", "to"]
"the"

["the", "text"]
["the", "text", undef]
"the"

["text", "to", "play"]
["text", "to", "play"]
"text"

["text", "to"]
["text", "to", undef]
"text"

["to", "play", "with"]
["to", "play", "with"]
"to"

["to", "play"]
["to", "play", undef]
"to"

["play", "with"]
["play", "with", undef]
"play"