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Non toccare questo ragno spaventoso!

Non toccare questo ragno spaventoso!
Do not touch this scary spider!
From Lesson 121:Negative commands (non...)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Non toccare questo ragno spaventoso!

Why is the infinitive toccare used here instead of a normal conjugation like tocchi?
This is how you give a negative command to one person informally (using tu). While a positive command uses a conjugated verb, telling someone not to do something uses non followed by the full dictionary form of the verb (the infinitive): non toccare.
If I were telling a group of people not to touch the spider, would I still use non toccare?
No, the non + infinitive rule is a special exception just for the singular tu. If you are warning a group of people (voi), you just use the normal conjugation with non in front of it: Non toccate questo ragno!
The word spaventoso means "scary". Is the -oso ending related to English "-ous"?
Yes! The suffix -oso is very common in Italian for turning a noun into an adjective, similar to "-ous" or "-y" in English. Here, it comes from the noun spavento (fright or panic). Because ragno is a masculine singular noun, the adjective takes the matching -o ending.
Why doesn't questo drop the final "o" and use an apostrophe here?
The word questo (this) only shrinks to quest' when the noun directly after it begins with a vowel, like quest'albero (this tree) or quest'anno (this year). Because ragno starts with a consonant, questo keeps its full spelling.

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