-ment suffix reductions

Question

I came across two different videos in which the suffix -ment was being pronounced in a way that the N sound was completely reduced and the T sound was a stop T.
The words were bewilderment and alignment, and both speakers were from the U.S. Having the N sound reduced like that made it really hard to understand those words.
I had never noticed this before. Is this a specific type of accent or is it something more common?

user 66974 · Answer

In an unstressed suffix, nasal sounds like /n/ are frequently reduced to nasality on the vowels. Native speakers hear the /n/; non-native speakers don't, because they don't recognize nasality, especially in a reduced unstressed final syllable. – John Lawler

Answered by user 66974 on August 13, 2021

-ment suffix reductions

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