The vowels of RP KIT

This is generally realized as half-close and retracted; one might expect a somewhat closer variant in some older speakers, although this is not a particular feature of trad-RP. The vowel is the norm in unstressed position in the morphemes -ed, -es, as in hunted, faces, and in such words as minutes, David. Elsewhere in unstressed syllables, reduction to [ə] is variably to be expected: vowel reduction is less likely in words where stressed  is in the preceding syllable, as in significant, than when it is not, as in horrible, happily. Gimson (1984: 50–53) closely examines many of the details of this phenomenon.