Zero copula is a common but not obligatory part of African American English grammar that can occur just about any time you could contract “is” or “are” to " 's" or " 're" in Standardized/General American English:
“His name’s Steve” “His name Steve”
“We’re leaving” “We leaving”
“I know who that is” “I know who that is” (ungrammatical to contract, ungrammatical to remove copula is)
Regarding “gone”: In casual speech, the kind most people use everyday when talking to one another, vowels become more centralized and consonants are removed or articulated as flaps or taps or otherwise assimilated to better accommodate faster speech. This has been studied in English, Dutch, and German at least. Some examples are “going to” -> “gonna” and “I don’t know” -> “I dunno”, which have transcended phonology into our orthography. I’m not sure what process explains the “gone” variant, which is just “gonna” without the schwa at the end, but yes, many Black Americans say that.
Zero copula is a common but not obligatory part of African American English grammar that can occur just about any time you could contract “is” or “are” to " 's" or " 're" in Standardized/General American English:
Regarding “gone”: In casual speech, the kind most people use everyday when talking to one another, vowels become more centralized and consonants are removed or articulated as flaps or taps or otherwise assimilated to better accommodate faster speech. This has been studied in English, Dutch, and German at least. Some examples are “going to” -> “gonna” and “I don’t know” -> “I dunno”, which have transcended phonology into our orthography. I’m not sure what process explains the “gone” variant, which is just “gonna” without the schwa at the end, but yes, many Black Americans say that.