ipath-empty ABNF rule

Hello,

The ipath-empty rule in http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3987.txt looks like this:

ipath-empty       = 0<ipchar>

I think this ABNF construct is called prose-val. I am wondering, can this be
replaced with the following, with full preservation of the meaning?

ipath-empty = ""

The reason I am asking is that I am using the excellent Java aParse library
(http://www.parse2.com/) to parse the IRI ABNF, but this library doesn't
support prose-val (I've talked to the author of the library, he has been
very helpful and explained that there seem to be ambiguous definitions as to
what prose-val actually is).

thank you,
Markus