Understanding fractional quantities of plural sets

The study investigates children’s interpretation of fractional measure phrases (e.g. "half") embedded in partitive constructions with plural noun phrases (e.g. "half of the plates"). In a modified truth-value judgment task, children evaluate sentences paired with visual displays depicting subsets that stand in different proportional relations to a previously established reference set. The goal is to determine whether children interpret fractional measure phrases in an adultlike manner, specifically, whether they treat "half" as a quantity expression picking out exactly 50% of a given set.