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There is a tasty recipe for bread "rågsiktskakor" with sifted rye flour, butter, milk, syrup, yeast and spices.
I am wondering why syrup is needed, is the sugar in the milk not enough for the yeast? What would change besides maybe the taste without the syrup?
The yeast feeds on the flour (after it has been broken down to sugar), not on the lactose in the milk. Too much added sugar even inhibits the yeast - although there are very few bread recipes which go into that range, maybe some richer brioches and pannetones.
Sugar is added to bread for taste and texture - and I will speak generically of "sugar" here, because the differences between adding syrup, crystal sugar, honey, etc. are minimal. The taste gets obviously more sweet. The texture becomes more cakelike - the bread is moister, less elastic, with thinner crust, and easier to brown. It is also more breakable, but in a "plump" way, not in the "short" way that is characteristic of adding fats. The crumb will have smaller, more even bubbles. In total, the whole bread tastes differently with sugar than without.
