Breakdown of Kasta skytteln gör hon fortare nu, men att byta spolen tar fortfarande tid.
hon
she
kasta
to throw
nu
now
göra
to do, to make
att
to
ta
to take
men
but
tiden
the time
byta
to change
fort
fast (adverb)
fortfarande
still
skytteln
the shuttle
spolen
the spool
Questions & Answers about Kasta skytteln gör hon fortare nu, men att byta spolen tar fortfarande tid.
Why do we need the verb gör here?
When you move an infinitive verb phrase like Kasta skytteln to the beginning of the sentence for emphasis, Swedish still strictly follows the V2 (verb-second) rule. Because the actual action verb was moved to the front, the dummy verb göra is inserted in the second position to carry the tense, giving us gör hon.
Why isn't there an att before kasta, but there is one before byta?
When an infinitive verb is fronted with the dummy verb göra, the infinitive marker att is almost always dropped. In the second half of the sentence, however, att byta spolen acts as the grammatical subject of the clause, so the att is kept to turn the verb into a noun phrase (meaning changing the spool).
In the second clause, why does fortfarande come after the verb tar?
This is a great V2 rule refresher. Even though att byta spolen is three words long, it counts as a single unit (the subject) filling the first position in the clause. The verb tar must take the second position, pushing the sentence adverb fortfarande after it.
Could the second clause also be written with a dummy gör?
Not with the exact same grammatical structure. The first clause has a specific subject (hon) performing the action, so you can essentially say Throwing the shuttle does she. The second clause says the action itself takes time. To use gör there, you would need a person doing it, for example: Byta spolen gör hon långsamt (Changing the spool she does slowly).
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