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I want to very briefly introduce the concept of a reduced syllable.  A reduced syllable is always unaccented or unstressed.  And the thing that makes it different from an unaccented or unstressed syllable is that one of the sounds is either not heard or unchanged.  Let's take, for example, the sentence "He doesn't know I got it for her." The word he, He doesn't know I got it for her, is unaccented.  It's lower in pitch and it is faster than the accented words.  But both of the sounds are there:  the H consonant sound, and the 'ee' as in 'she' [].  He doesn't know I got it for her.  The word for - He doesn't know I got it for, for - is pronounced with the schwa sound [], for, instead of the 'oh' as in 'no' diphthong [].  For.  That change in sound means that this word is 'reduced' because something changes.  As I said before, reduced is always unaccented, so it's always going to be lower in pitch and quicker.  He doesn't know I got it for her.

One more example:  She wants peppers and onions.  'Peppers' and 'onions' are the stressed words here, the nouns.  'She' and 'wants' are both unaccented, but they are not reduced because all of the sounds are there.  She wants peppers and onions.  The word 'and', however, is reduced.  Basically, you just hear the N sound.  Peppers nn, nn, nn, peppers and onions.  She wants peppers and onions.

To review, a reduced syllable is an unaccented or unstressed syllable in which one of the sounds is either left out, or changes.