fresh pkg cvs, starting from scratch generates several hundred
complaints along the lines of:

make: Unclosed variable specification for BUILDLINK_DEPENDS.(variable_x)

interspersed with :

pkg_admin: `/' not recognised
pkg_admin: `/' not recognised
pkg_admin: `:' not recognised
pkg_admin: `*' not recognised
pkg_admin: `:' not recognised
pkg_admin: `/' not recognised
pkg_admin: `/' not recognised
pkg_admin: `/' not recognised
pkg_admin: `:' not recognised
pkg_admin: `*' not recognised
pkg_admin: `:' not recognised
pkg_admin: `/' not recognised
make: Unclosed variable specification for BUILDLINK_DEPENDS.guile
make: Unclosed substitution for _BLNK_ADD_TO.DEPENDS (/ missing)
make in free(): warning: junk pointer, too low to make sense.
make: "../../mk/buildlink3/../../mk/buildlink3/bsd.buildlink3.mk" line 1:
Malformed conditional
(empty(${_BLNK_DEPMETHOD.guile}:Mguile>=1.6.3nb1/_asdf_/1:M_asdf_*:S/\:*))
make: "../../mk/buildlink3/../../mk/buildlink3/bsd.buildlink3.mk" line 1:
Missing dependency operator
make: Unclosed variable specification for BUILDLINK_DEPENDS.x11-links
make: Unclosed variable specification for BUILDLINK_DEPENDS.x11-links
make: Unclosed variable specification for BUILDLINK_DEPENDS.x11-links
make: "../../mk/../../mk/bsd.pkg.mk" line 1369: if-less endif
make: "../../mk/../../mk/bsd.pkg.mk" line 1369: Need an operator
make: Fatal errors encountered -- cannot continue

1369 is the last line of this block:

# Get the proper dependencies and set the PATH to use the compiler
# named in PKGSRC_COMPILER.
#
.include "../../mk/compiler.mk" 

.if !empty(USE_BUILDLINK2:M[nN][oO]) && !empty(USE_BUILDLINK3:M[nN][oO])
NO_BUILDLINK=           # defined 
.endif
.if !defined(NO_BUILDLINK)
.  if empty(USE_BUILDLINK3:M[nN][oO])  
.    include "../../mk/buildlink3/bsd.buildlink3.mk"
.  elif empty(USE_BUILDLINK2:M[nN][oO])
.    include "../../mk/buildlink2/bsd.buildlink2.mk"
.  endif
.endif

something wrong with bsd.buildlink3.mk or bsd.buildlink2.mk?