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Earlier in this lesson, it was stated that nuclei of syllables were generally vowels. This is not always the case. In English, it is possible for some types of consonants to serve as nuclei of syllables.
Say the word babble.
How many syllables does it have?
Hopefully, you said two.
The transcription of the word babble used in this website would be 
, where 
is a consonant.
Let's try to syllabify this. The consonant-vowel sequence would be CVCC. However, we know that there are two syllables, but only one vowel. So, something has to serve as the nucleus of the second syllable.
Certain consonants, like [l], [r], [m], and [n] can serve as nuclei for syllables. When they are used as syllabic nuclei, they are called syllabic resonants, and are written as , 
, 
, 
.
Therefore, the syllabification of the word babble would be:
The next section summarizes all that has been discussed in this lesson.