What are your various BSD* vars and OBJ* vars set to? (It's acting like it
   doesn't beleive BSDSRCDIR in some cases here).

BSDSRCDIR=/usr/src
BSDOBJDIR?=/var/obj
OBJMACHINE?=yes
USR_OBJMACHINE?=yes
MKOBJDIRS?=yes

but i also have:

MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX=/var/obj.${MACHINE}

in my environment.

   
   Also, does it do this inside src/usr.bin/xlint/lint1 ?

i haven't gotten that far yet.... and i'm having weirdness there
testing just now:

powerofseven usr.bin/xlint/lint1> make -m /usr/src/share/mk -n lint.7
/var/tools/bin/yacc   -d -o cgram.c /usr/src/usr.bin/xlint/lint1/cgram.y
make: don't know how to make cgram.h. Stop

make: stopped in /usr/src/usr.bin/xlint/lint1