Syllabic consonants

“The syllabic sound of a syllable is generally a vowel, but consonants may also be syllabic. The more sonorous consonants such as n, l often are so, as in the English words people ^'pi:pl, little ^'litl, button ^'bΛtn'' (Jones 1969: paragraph 213). The morpheme -ment is typically .

It is normal for the syllabic consonant to be retained when a morpheme spelt with an initial vowel follows it, giving littler , buttoning . (Jones uses the distinctive pair lightening  and lightning  to illustrate this point.) It is frequently the case, however, that syllabicization does not occur before an unstressed vowel, especially in rapid connected speech, so that both RP lightening and lightning might be rendered as .