Identifying column position in XHTML table model?

Has anyone developed code (preferably XSLT 1.0) that can identify
the physical output column of a cell in the XHTML table model?
I.e., given data like so

<table>
  <tr>
    <td rowspan="2">content</td>
    <td>content</td>
    <td>content</td>
    <td>content</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>content</td>
    <td>content</td>
    <td>content</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="3">content</td>
    <td>content</td>
  </tr>
</table>

which produces a table looking something like

  x  x  x  x
  .  x  x  x
  x  .  .  x

be able to calculate that table/tr[2]/td[1] is in column 2 and
table/tr[3]/td[2] is in column 4, etc.?

It's not a simple algorithm to figure out because it must take into
account for a given cell all combinations of @colspan and @rowspan in
preceding cells that interact to affect the position of the current
cell.

I can see my way to an XSLT 2.0 solution that would work by creating
pseudo-array variable created via a recursive function (basically an XML
version of the "x . x" picture), but that's not an option in XSLT 1.0.
Ideally I need something that will work with current Web browser XSLT
parsers. (The underlying data I'm working with is actually TEI tables,
but the row/column span semantics are identical to XHTML.)

DS

-- 
David Sewell, Editorial and Technical Manager
Electronic Imprint, The University of Virginia Press
PO Box 400318, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4318 USA
Courier: 310 Old Ivy Way, Suite 302, Charlottesville VA 22903
Email: dsewell@xxxxxxxxxxxx   Tel: +1 434 924 9973
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