Breakdown of Du ska väl verkligen inte äta den klibbiga smeten?
du
you (singular)
inte
not
ska
will
äta
to eat
Questions & Answers about Du ska väl verkligen inte äta den klibbiga smeten?
Why are the adverbs väl, verkligen, and inte placed in that exact order?
When you have multiple sentence adverbs in the midfield (the space between the conjugated verb and the infinitive verb), Swedish follows a specific hierarchy. A modal particle that shows the speaker's attitude (like väl or ju) usually comes first. Next is an evaluating adverb (like verkligen or kanske), and finally the negator (inte). Therefore, väl verkligen inte is the natural sequence.
What does the word väl do in this sentence? Can I just leave it out?
You can leave it out, but it changes the tone. Here, väl acts like a tag question ('..., are you?') or the word 'surely.' It shows that the speaker expects the listener to agree with them. Without it, Du ska verkligen inte äta... becomes a more forceful statement or command: 'You are really not going to eat...'.
Why is the infinitive verb äta separated so far from the helping verb ska?
In Swedish main clauses, the conjugated verb (ska) must stay in the second position to satisfy the V2 rule. The infinitive verb (äta) has to wait until all the sentence adverbs in the midfield have been stated. Because we stacked three adverbs here, äta gets pushed quite far back!
Just as a refresher, why is it den klibbiga smeten and not just den klibbiga smet?