I understand that intonation patterns can help distinguish the intended meaning , but the question is - What is the proper way to express both the meanings while writing ? Is the punctuation an accepted form in this regard ?

Your impression is on the whole justified, and to this I referred as 'a special stylistic effect' that placing a comma may have. Consider this: - Do I stay any chance of winning? - For you to win will be almost impossible. For him to win

Yes, you can do that: "Damn, he's astute!" or "Damn, is he astute!" (I'd probably use a comma). The emphatic use should not be confused with the use of "damn" to express annoyance: "Damn! He's

The ambiguity might be clearer if we simplify the sentence: "Ask John when we leave." 1) As we are walking out the door, ask John (about something that is not specified in this sentence.) 2) Ask John, "John,

Commas are overused. A good writer only uses commas when /he/she wants readers to hear the intonation curves in his/her writing. Do you agree?

I know "I don't think he is serious, do I?" is absurd. I don't think that wording is absurd. You only need the proper context. Some types of tag questions simply have much more specialized usage (and therefore are also less

Both sentences are grammatical. The first one is actually not really a question unless the speaker's intonation rises towards the end. Without the right intonation the sentence is just negative and is usually written without a question mark:

Hello to all, I believe that to learn English depends of the interest of individual and depending of the English knowledge you wanted to learn. like for instance, if you want to speak English all you have to do is to listen very carefully to

Pucca wrote: I wonder how your sister destroyed the ring What? I would never put a question mark in that sentence, it wouldn't make any sense. I use punctuation to modify the rhytm and intonation a little... like, uh, yeah, like this. This?

Absolutely. If it was SAID, there were no dashes, commas, periods, etc. Only pauses or intonation to tell you what punctuation would be appropriate. It's up to you to use the punctuation that keeps the original meaning.