This book deals with final devoicing in German. Specifically, it discusses how this phonological event can be handled in a theoretical framework based on principles and parameters rather than rules. It begins with an outline of the data to be analysed, which is followed by a detailed discussion of earlier work on final devoicing. The author then introduces Government Phonology and develops a Government Phonology analysis which overcomes many of the problems associated with these previous accounts. She argues that final devoicing should be interpreted as a phonological weakening process which consists in the withdrawal of autosegmental licensing from the laryngeal element L (= voicing on obstruents). Finally, the author investigates whether final devoicing results in phonological neutralisation, as is often assumed in the literature.