Questions & Answers about Vad biet gjorde var att hämta nektarn.
In English we can say 'What the bee did was fetch', dropping the 'to'. Can I drop att in Swedish and just say var hämta nektarn?
No, you generally cannot. When using a pseudo-cleft sentence to focus on an action, Swedish almost strictly requires the infinitive marker att after the copula verb (var). You must say var att hämta (was to fetch).
Why isn't the word order Vad gjorde biet in the first part of the sentence?
Because Vad biet gjorde is not a question; it is a subordinate clause acting as the main subject of the sentence. In Swedish subordinate clauses, the subject (biet) always comes before the verb (gjorde).
How does the long phrase Vad biet gjorde affect the V2 (verb-second) rule?
The V2 rule still applies perfectly here. The entire subordinate clause Vad biet gjorde counts as a single grammatical unit taking up Position 1. Therefore, the main verb of the sentence, var, correctly takes Position 2 right after it.
Biet translates to 'the bee'. Is the base word en bi or ett bi?
It is an ett-word: ett bi. Because it is a short word ending in a vowel, it simply adds -et to become the definite form biet.
Why is the definite form of nectar nektarn instead of ?