Patrik Bye is a theoretical linguist specializing in phonology, the study of the sound patterns of natural human languages. His research interests include how speech sounds are organized into larger units such as words and phrases, how sound structure interacts with other systems, notably sentence construction and meaning to yield varied patterns of phrasing and intonation. In his most recent work in literary linguistics he applies this to understanding the workings of English verse, both metered and ‘free’. Bye has published on the phonology of Saami and the North Germanic languages, and is now engaged in a project to document Nevisian, an Eastern Caribbean creole variety.