fop runs forever on the fo from a simple variablelist

[David Bridgeland <bridgeland@yahoo.com>]

 From some simple docbook source I am create FO that causes FOP to hang, 
generating an increasingly long log file. 

The problematic docbook source contains a simple variablelist, and 
little else:

    <!-- -*- DocBook -*- -->
    <!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.2//EN"
    "file:///c:/apps/docbook/dtd/docbookx.dtd" [
    ]>
    <chapter id="JavaScript" label="10" status="draft">
    <title>JavaScript</title>
    <para>
    foo
    </para>
    <variablelist>
    <title>Equation Variables</title>
    <varlistentry>
    <term>p</term>
    <listitem><para>monthly payment amount</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    </variablelist>
    </chapter>

Note that if I remove the variablelist, this little docbook file works fine.

The docbook validates against the docbook dtd v4.2. I am a FO novice, 
but the relevant part of the FO file seems innocent:

    <fo:block font-style="italic" font-weight="normal" font-size="12pt"
    hyphenate="true" space-after.minimum="0.4em"
    space-after.optimum="0.6em" space-after.maximum="0.8em"
    space-before.optimum="1em" space-before.minimum="0.8em"
    space-before.maximum="1.2em"
    keep-with-next.within-column="always">Equation Variables</fo:block>
    <fo:list-block id="id330095"
    provisional-distance-between-starts="1em"
    provisional-label-separation="0.25in" space-before.optimum="1em"
    space-before.minimum="0.8em" space-before.maximum="1.2em"
    space-after.optimum="1em" space-after.minimum="0.8em"
    space-after.maximum="1.2em">
    <fo:list-item id="id330102" space-before.optimum="1em"
    space-before.minimum="0.8em" space-before.maximum="1.2em">
    <fo:list-item-label end-indent="label-end()" text-align="start">
    <fo:block><fo:inline>p</fo:inline></fo:block>
    </fo:list-item-label>
    <fo:list-item-body start-indent="body-start()"><fo:block>monthly
    payment amount</fo:block></fo:list-item-body>
    </fo:list-item></fo:list-block></fo:block></fo:flow></fo:page-sequence></fo:root>

The log file repeats the same error message forever:

    [INFO] area contents overflows area
    [ERROR] Couldn't find hyphenation pattern en
    [ERROR] Error building hyphenation tree for language en
    [INFO] area contents overflows area
    [ERROR] Couldn't find hyphenation pattern en
    [ERROR] Error building hyphenation tree for language en
    [INFO] area contents overflows area
    [ERROR] Couldn't find hyphenation pattern en
    [ERROR] Error building hyphenation tree for language en
    ....

I am using docbook-xsl-1.60.1 to create FO, and fop-0.20-5rc2 to create 
PDF.

I see from past postings that others are successfully using variablelist 
with fop. Am I missing something easy?

Dave Bridgeland