When speaking, how do we convert our thoughts into the sounds that come out of our mouths? Though seemingly effortless, the process of word production is realized by a complex system working over different levels of representation. By focusing on the sublexical factors, this work investigates the representations and dynamics of the word production system at the level of phonological processing. Three methodologies were used in this investigation. Large picture naming datasets were reanalyzed with regard to large set of sublexical factors. The resulting factors that were found to be significant were further tested in a series of experiments. Finally, computational simulations were used to verify theoretical claims about the empirical findings.

Overall, this dissertation concludes for the representation of syllables and onsets in the word system. Moreover, phonemes and syllables are represented at different processing levels in the system, with phoneme information being accessed earlier than syllable information. With regard to system dynamics, the evidence from sublexical effects does not support the claim of interactivity in the word production system. These findings provide strong constraints on word production models and are not fully captured by any of the current word production models.