Debate around inflectional morphology in language acquisition has contrasted various rule- versus analogy-based approaches. This paper tests the rule-based Tolerance Principle (TP) against a new type of pattern in the acquisition of the possessive suffix -im in Northern East Cree. When possessed, each noun type either requires or disallows the suffix, which has a complex distribution throughout the lexicon. Using naturalistic video data from one adult and two children – Ani (2;01–4;03) and Daisy (3;08–5;10) – this paper presents two studies. Study 1 applies the TP to the input to extrapolate two possible sets of nested rules for -im and make predictions for child speech. Study 2 tests these predictions and finds that each child’s production of possessives over time is largely consistent with the predictions of the TP. This paper finds the TP can account for the acquisition of the possessive suffix and discusses implications for language science and Cree language communities.

关于语言习得中的屈折形态的争论将各种基于规则的方法与基于类比的方法进行了对比。本文针对东北克里语所有格后缀im习得的新型模式测试了基于规则的容忍原则 (TP) 。当拥有时，每种名词类型要么需要或不允许后缀，后缀在整个词典中具有复杂的分布。本文使用来自一名成人和两名儿童——Ani (2;01–4;03) 和 Daisy (3;08–5;10) 的自然视频数据，介绍了两项研究。研究 1 将 TP 应用于输入，以推断 - im的两组可能的嵌套规则，并对儿童语音进行预测。研究 2 检验了这些预测，发现随着时间的推移，每个孩子所有格的产生与 TP 的预测基本一致。本文发现 TP 可以解释所有格后缀的习得，并讨论了对语言科学和克里语社区的影响。