(On Linux)
It'll exit with status code 2, not printing an error message, and leaving some stuff unbuilt.
I've put the output of make --debug=v at https://gist.github.com/865862 , but that doesn't seem to contain any useful error messages either. If someone has more ideas on how to debug this, let me know.
Doing make clean and then make again causes a normal, working build to happen.