Richards-MacBook-Pro:test2 richard$ cat makefile
.PHONY: help
help:
	$(MAKE) --print-data-base --question |       \
	awk '/^[^.%][-A-Za-z0-9_]*:/                 \
	 { print substr($$1, 1, length($$1)-1) }' |  \
        sort 

# My version of GNU make (3.8.1) doesn't have builtin variables $(AWK) and
# $(SORT), but awk and sort do exist on my system

# I have omitted the pr command because my system (OS X 10.7)
# doesn't understand one of the options given

.PHONY: test
test:
	@echo "This is a test"
Richards-MacBook-Pro:test2 richard$ make help
make --print-data-base --question |       \
	awk '/^[^.%][-A-Za-z0-9_]*:/                 \
	 { print substr($1, 1, length($1)-1) }' |  \
        sort 
/bin/sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[55]: *** [help] Error 128
help
makefile
test
Richards-MacBook-Pro:test2 richard$ make test
This is a test
Richards-MacBook-Pro:test2 richard$ make --version
GNU Make 3.81
Copyright (C) 2006  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

This program built for i386-apple-darwin11.3.0
Richards-MacBook-Pro:test2 richard$ awk --version
awk version 20070501
Richards-MacBook-Pro:test2 richard$ make --print-data-base -n | grep AWK
/bin/sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[54]: *** [help] Error 128
/bin/sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[57]: *** [help] Error 128
Richards-MacBook-Pro:test2 richard$ make --print-data-base -n | grep SORT
/bin/sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[54]: *** [help] Error 128
Richards-MacBook-Pro:test2 richard$ /bin/sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[109]: *** [help] Error 128
/bin/sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[164]: *** [help] Error 128
/bin/sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
make[165]: *** [help] Error 128

Richards-MacBook-Pro:test2 richard$ uname -a
Darwin Richards-MacBook-Pro.local 11.4.2 Darwin Kernel Version 11.4.2: Thu Aug 23 16:26:45 PDT 2012; root:xnu-1699.32.7~1/RELEASE_I386 i386