automake will generate a bogus Makefile.in when using lisp (the gettext package is one example). It puts an @ in the Makefile.in so make won't quit on an error, but it puts it in the middle of a shell expression (so the shell barfs on an extraneous @). It looks like someone created lisp.am by copying another .am file and didn't take this out. The patch is easy (and will be attached).
Created attachment 41653 [details] Patch to fix lisp.am bug
FYI: this bug is fixed in the CVS automake. We hope to do a bug-fix release soon. This release will be in the 1.5 series. The 1.4 series has ended. (If Red Hat is sticking with 1.4 for a while, we can work something out; this bug is also fixed on the 1.4 branch, but the 1.4 branch can't be released as-is.)
Thanks. This already seems fixed in automake-1.5, ie automake-1.5-1. (It was also fixed in automake-1.4p5-3.)