diff --git a/R/collocationAnalysis.R b/R/collocationAnalysis.R
index d8df60b..36c7460 100644
--- a/R/collocationAnalysis.R
+++ b/R/collocationAnalysis.R
@@ -163,7 +163,7 @@
                 tibble()
               }
             }
-            if (maxRecurse > 0 & any(!!as.name(thresholdScore) >= threshold)) {
+            if (maxRecurse > 0 & length(result) > 0 && any(!!as.name(thresholdScore) >= threshold)) {
               recurseWith <- result %>%
                 filter(!!as.name(thresholdScore) >= threshold)
               result <- collocationAnalysis(
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-collocations.R b/tests/testthat/test-collocations.R
index 43f39a2..e2d1755 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-collocations.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-collocations.R
@@ -24,7 +24,8 @@
           rightContextSize = 0,
           searchHitsSampleLimit = 100,
           topCollocatesLimit = 1,
-          exactFrequencies = FALSE
+          exactFrequencies = FALSE,
+          maxRecurse = 2
         ),
       "access token"
     )
@@ -35,7 +36,7 @@
 test_that("collocationAnalysis on unaccounted strings does not error out", {
   kco <- new("KorAPConnection", accessToken = NULL, verbose = TRUE)
   expect_warning(
-    df <- collocationAnalysis(kco, "XXXXXXXXAmeisenplage", vc=c("corpusSigle=/WDD17/", "corpusSigle=/WUD17/")),
+    df <- collocationAnalysis(kco, "XXXXXXXXAmeisenplage", vc=c("corpusSigle=/WDD17/", "corpusSigle=/WUD17/"), maxRecurse = 2),
     "access token"
   )
   testthat::expect_equal(nrow(df), 0)