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Quelqu'un frappe à la porte, mais il n'y a personne.

Quelqu'un frappe à la porte, mais il n'y a personne.
Someone is knocking at the door, but there is nobody.
From Lesson 112:Negative pronouns (ne... personne)·French

Questions & Answers about Quelqu'un frappe à la porte, mais il n'y a personne.

Why is there no pas in il n'y a personne?
The word personne (nobody) is a negative pronoun that completely replaces pas. Just like ne... pas wraps around the conjugated verb, ne... personne does the exact same thing. Here, it goes around the expression y a (there is) to mean there is nobody.
Are quelqu'un and personne direct opposites in French?
Yes! Quelqu'un means someone or somebody, and personne means no one or nobody. Because this sentence contrasts the two, it is a great example of how they function as opposites.
Why is it à la porte instead of sur la porte for knocking on the door?
Prepositions rarely translate word-for-word between English and French. The fixed French expression for knocking on the door is frapper à la porte. It is easiest to memorize frapper à as a set phrase.
Why is it n'y instead of ne y?
The negative word ne always drops its vowel and uses an apostrophe when it is followed by another vowel or the pronoun y. So, ne + y + a smoothly combines into n'y a to make pronunciation easier.

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