"No Tocar"

Question

I've seen a lot of signs that say "No Tocar" or other signs that I can't remember right now, most which say something that I assumed would be a command, however the command form is not used. Instead, for "don't touch" or "ask within" the infinitive is used. Is the command used only in speech?

Answer 1

To use the imperative in these cases we need to decide which conjugation to use, so by using the infinitive we give a clear message to anybody. We normally do this with just signs, although occasionally the infinitive is used for stearnly telling little children not to do something.

We can also use the infinitive in place the imperative to tell someone to do something, ie: a child´s mother commanding him to eat ¡A comer!