Questions & Answers about Gestern ist niemand geblieben.
Is niemand the subject of this sentence, and does it need an ending?
Yes, niemand (nobody or no one) is the subject here. When used as the subject, niemand stays in its base form and does not need an extra ending. You will usually only see endings added when it is the direct object of a sentence, such as niemanden.
Why do we use ist instead of hat to say stayed?
In German, most verbs use haben to form the past tense, while verbs showing a change of state or movement from A to B use sein. The verb bleiben (to stay) is a famous exception. Even though it means staying in one place, it always takes sein as its helping verb. That is why we say ist geblieben instead of hat geblieben.
Why is the word order ist niemand instead of niemand ist?
This is because of the German verb-second rule. The time word Gestern takes the first position in the sentence. The helping verb ist must be in the second position, so the subject niemand gets pushed to the third position right after the verb.
Why is geblieben at the very end of the sentence?
When you use the two-part past tense, the helping verb takes the second position, and the past participle (geblieben) is placed at the very end of the sentence to complete the thought.