Omitted white-space in XSLT

In processing this DocBook fragment (in a <para>):

   (see <xref linkend="dif"/> <foreignphrase>et              
seq</foreignphrase>)

I get the output:

   (see <a href="#dif">the note on "DIF format"</a><i>et seq</i>)

with no space between the </a> and the <i> despite the presence 
of a space character in the input. This is using Saxon.

Before I go and strip it down to create a minimal instance, has
this been seen or reported before? 

///Peter



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