Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Polycarp66 AT aol.com]

In a message dated 2/17/2000 9:35:47 PM Central Daylight Time, 
timr AT net2000ke.com writes:

<< Could someone kindly explain the reason for the dagesh in the resh in the
 second word <resh-ayin> in Psalm 52.5?  I presume it is a change due to
 accents and/or is a dagesh euphonicum.  GKC mentions it in 22s with a
 referral to 20f but I don't find the explanation very clear. >>

While not citing this passage, here is what van der Merwe, et. al. have to 
say pertaining to such situations.

3.  The conjunctive dageš

When a word ends on an unaccented [a/â] or [ê] and the first syllable of the 
next word is accented and the first consonant of the next word is accented, 
the first consonant of the second word is written with a conjunctive dageš as 
in 

$fBiYTf $.eBiY  
&iYMfH L.fNW.

This dageš is called the conjunctive dageš or the dageš conjunctivum.  It is 
generally understood that this dageš does not indicate the doubling of the 
consonant, but it has not been possible to ascertain its precise function as 
yet.

In other words, it's been observed, but we don't know why it's there.

gfsomsel