How to get -ldependencies in /usr/local/lib to work

[Patrick Horgan]

I'm using gnu make 3.81 and for some reason, things like
file: -lfooburger
where /usr/local/lib/libfooburger.so exists fail.  Make tells me:

make: *** No rule to make target `-lfooburger`, needed by `file`.  Stop.

The documentation makes me think it should work--i.e. PREFIX should be 
/usr/local/lib, and it would just work.
It works fine for things in /usr/lib.  With -d I can see it never looks 
for it as a library.

HELP!!!   Thanks, Patrick