A common reduction phenomenon in German colloquial speech is the elimination or assimilation of the schwa sound in word final syllables which are reduced to a single segment. This study investigates whether those syllabic segments are perceptually different from their non-syllabic counterparts and which acoustic parameters are responsible for these differences. Two types of test words were chosen: words with schwa elimination between two nasals and words with schwa assimilation before a vocalized /r/. Evidence is given that differences are cued not only within the segments in question but in the preceding syllable as well.