Questions & Answers about Niemand antwortet.
Is niemand always singular?
Yes. Just like "nobody" or "no one" in English, niemand is always treated as a third-person singular subject. That is why the verb antworten (to answer) is conjugated as antwortet, exactly as it would be for er, sie, or es.
Why is there an extra "e" in antwortet?
To find the stem of the verb antworten, you remove the -en, which leaves you with antwort-. Because this stem ends in a "t", adding the regular third-person -t ending would create "antwortt", which is too hard to pronounce. German adds an extra -e- as a cushion to make it pronounceable: antwortet.
Do I need to add nicht to make this sentence negative?
No. The word niemand already contains the negative meaning "nobody". Just like in standard English, German generally avoids double negatives. Adding nicht to this sentence would be incorrect.
Does niemand ever change its ending depending on the case?
It can! In this sentence, niemand is the subject (nominative case), so it has no ending. When it is used as a direct or indirect object, you will often see it take endings: niemanden for the accusative case and niemandem for the dative case. However, in casual spoken German, people sometimes drop the endings and just say niemand.
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