Correct Response: A. The fact that the student observes that some native English speakers consistently drop the third person singular inflection –s is a clue that this is a feature or rule of their dialect or language variation. In fact, dropping the third-person singular inflection is a feature of various dialects of English. Dropping the third-person marker does not increase the grammatical complexity of this language structure, making C incorrect. Moreover, irregular verb forms in English do not simply drop the –s in third person present. Instead, they typically have a distinct vowel or consonant (or stem) change, making B incorrect. Lastly, connected speech refers to spoken language in a continuous sequence, such as a phrase, sentence, or discourse, and would not account for dropping an inflection, making D incorrect as well.
