avoid some redundancy in rule markable patterns?

[unhammer]

In order to say that patterns prep (det)? (ncmp)* nom[head] should get score -1, I need all of

    <markable n="PP">
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <pattern-item n="det"/>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <pattern-item n="det"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <pattern-item n="det"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <pattern-item n="det"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>

      <score n="-1"/> <!-- This gives a -1 score to any antecedent that is part of a PP -->
    </markable>

It'd be nice if we could instead say e.g.

    <markable n="PP">
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <zero-or-one>  <pattern-item n="det"/>  </zero-or-one>
        <zero-or-more> <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>  </zero-or-more>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>

      <score n="-1"/>
    </markable>

or, if they have to be fixed-length,

    <markable n="PP">
      <pattern>
        <pattern-item n="prep"/>
        <repeat from="0" upto="1"> <pattern-item n="det"/>  </repeat>
        <repeat from="0" upto="4"> <pattern-item n="ncmp"/>  </repeat>
        <pattern-item n="nom" head="t"/>
      </pattern>

      <score n="-1"/>
    </markable>