dependency generation problems

[Sam TH]

I'm attempting to use automakes provisions for automatic dependecy
generation, and I'm running into problems.  When I try to run make,
after configuring, I get this error:

Making all in af
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/sam/projects/abi-auto/build/src/af'
GNUmakefile:261: .deps/libAf.la.Plo: No such file or directory
make[2]: *** No rule to make target `.deps/libAf.la.Plo'.  Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/sam/projects/abi-auto/build/src/af'

There are, of course, no files in that .deps directory, since they
haven't been generated yet.  So, since this is supposed to generate
the .Plo files, why is it complaining that they don't exist?
 
The only potential cause that I can think of is that the actual source
files are two further directory levels below the one in the error, and
I know automake doesn't deal so well with deep directory trees.
However, make in a lower level directory has a similar result.

address@hidden build]$ automake --version
automake (GNU automake) 1.4a

I hope this is enough info for someone to figure out what is going wrong. 

Thanks
          
sam th --- address@hidden --- http://www.abisource.com/~sam/
OpenPGP Key: CABD33FC --- http://samth.dyndns.org/key
DeCSS: http://samth.dyndns.org/decss

pgpjfdczVVVs9.pgp
Description: PGP signature