Is ”Have you got paper?” a well-formed question?

Is it grammatical to ask Have you got paper?

Do you have to specify have you got a piece of paper, any paper, or some paper — or can you just say paper?

Solution 1:

I would say it's not incorrect grammatically speaking, but perhaps imprecise. It would be clearly incorrect to say something like "Have you got pencil?"

'Paper', on the other hand, in the sense you've used it is a mass noun. The usage in English seems a bit murky, but you'd be well understood in a classroom if you asked a child "Have you got paper?" in the same way as if you asked "Have you got money?"

Solution 2:

Yes, it is grammatical. It shows a use of the zero article, of which the ‘Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English’ says, Zero article phrases commonly express non-specific or generic references. To see that ‘paper’ can occur with a zero article, we need look no further than Lewis Carroll:

The Beaver brought paper, portfolio, pens.