The following code does not render a compilation error (notice the closing parenthesis in the return statement).  In fact, everything dies completely with no output at all no matter what you try until you uncomment the offending line.  Here is the code that reproduces what I am reporting:

<?php
  error_reporting(E_ALL);
  function test() {
    return "Hello");
  }
  echo test();
?>

error_reporting is set to 2047 in php.ini

Configure parameters:
'--enable-track-vars' '--with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs' '--with-mysql' '--with-gnu-ld'