[xsl] Trying to find following sibling that ends in punctuation

["Marijan (Mario) Madunic" <hajduk@xxxxxxxx>]

Using XSLT 2, XPath 2, and Saxon8

I'm trying to get the count(of preceding::*) of a following sibling node 
that ends with some sort of punctuation, and throw this value into a 
variable.

I've created a recurisive template

   <xsl:template name="ct_PositionOfNodeThatEndsWithPunct">

       <!-- set a default value for p_Node -->
       <xsl:param name="p_Node" 
select="following-sibling::*[self::P][1]" />

       <!-- test what the element ends with -->      
       <xsl:variable name="l_EndsWith" 
select="f:f_StringEndsWith($p_Node)" />

       <xsl:choose>
           <xsl:when test="$l_EndsWith = 'noPunct'">
               <xsl:call-template 
name="ct_PositionOfNodeThatEndsWithPunct">
                   <xsl:with-param name="p_Node" 
select="following-sibling::*[self::P][1]" />
               </xsl:call-template>
           </xsl:when>
           <xsl:otherwise><xsl:value-of select="count(preceding::*) + 
1" /></xsl:otherwise>
       </xsl:choose>

   </xsl:template>

Now  I was hoping that because called templates are context sensitive I 
can keep on just doing "select="following-sibling::*[self::P][1]" as 
I've done to give p_Node a new value to iterate through. I keep on 
getting out of memory error. Memory is not an issue as from my past 
experiences when I get this error when I introduce a recursive template 
usually means I've given the recursion no way out. But I can't see why 
this is happening.

Any insight will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mario