Trouble with making xquery function recursive - xquery

Question

I'm having some difficulty with making a function I've written recursive. I need to be able to turn this xml:
<entry ref="22">
<headword>abaishen</headword>
<part_of_speech> v. </part_of_speech>
<variant>abeishen</variant>
<variant>abaissen</variant>
<variant>abeisen</variant>
<variant>abashen</variant>
<variant>abasshen</variant>
<variant>abassen</variant>
<variant>abeeshen</variant>
<variant>abesen</variant>
<variant>abessen</variant>
<variant>abaished</variant>
<variant>-et</variant>
<variant>-it</variant>
<variant>abaisht</variant>
<variant>abaist</variant>
<variant>abasht</variant>
<variant>abast</variant>
</entry>
Into this XML -- essentially replacing the ending of any entry that begins with an "-" with the stem of the last complete entry:
<entry ref="22">
<headword>abaishen</headword>
<variant>abeishen</variant>
<variant>abaissen</variant>
<variant>abeisen</variant>
<variant>abashen</variant>
<variant>abasshen</variant>
<variant>abassen</variant>
<variant>abeeshen</variant>
<variant>abesen</variant>
<variant>abessen</variant>
<variant>abaished</variant>
<variant>abaishet</variant>
<variant>abaishit</variant>
<variant>abaisht</variant>
<variant>abaist</variant>
<variant>abasht</variant>
<variant>abast</variant>
<part_of_speech> v. </part_of_speech>
</entry>
The issue I'm running into is that second entry, the -it one, returns "abaishet" with the code I currently have:
declare function local:hyphen-replace($f) {
let $j :=
if (substring($f/text(), 1, 1) = "-") then
let $ending := substring-after($f/text(),"-")
let $ending-length := string-length($ending)
let $previous := $f/preceding-sibling::*[1]
let $previous-length := string-length($previous)
return
if (substring($previous/text(), 1, 1) = "-") then
local:hyphen-replace($previous)
else
element {name($f)} {concat(substring($previous,1,($previous-length - $ending-length)),$ending)}
else
$f
return $j
};
declare function local:verbCheck($nodes as node()*) as node()* {
let $d := $nodes/part_of_speech
let $s := functx:siblings($d)
let $p := for $node in $nodes
return
let $d := $node/part_of_speech
let $s := functx:siblings($d)
return
if ($d/text() = " v. ") then
for $f in $s
let $j :=
local:hyphen-replace($f)
return ($j)
else
<empty/>
return
($p,$d)
};
<list>
{
let $collection := concat($collection, '?select=*.xml')
let $q := collection($collection)
let $v := local:buildNodes($q)
let $entries :=
for $n in $v
return <entry ref="{$n/#ref}">{local:verbCheck($n)}</entry>
return local:remove-empty-elements($entries)
}
</list>
It's obvious to me that my problem is with this piece of code in local:hypen-replace:
if (substring($previous/text(), 1, 1) = "-") then
local:hyphen-replace($previous)
because it's calling to the immediately previous item and replacing the "-it" node with it's information. But I don't know how to rewrite it to make it work recursively properly. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.