Combinations of syllabic consonants

It is not unusual to find two syllabic consonants together. Examples are: 'national' næʃṇ_.l, 'literal' lɪtṛ_.l , 'visionary' vɪƷṇṛi, 'veteran' vetrn. It is important to remember that it is often not possible to say with certainty whether a speaker has pronounced a syllabic consonant, a non-syllabic consonant or a non-syllabic consonant plus a. For example, the word 'veteran' given above could be pronounced in other ways than vetrn. A BBC speaker might instead say vetrən, vetərṇ or vetərən. The transcription makes it look as if the difference between these words is clear; it is not. In examining colloquial English it is often more or less a matter of arbitrary choice how one transcribes such a word. Transcription has the unfortunate tendency to make things seem simpler and more clear-cut than they really are.