A discussion of the animacy hierarchy in human discourse looks at the role of the hierarchy in three Western Austronesian languages: Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia, and Rejang. Animacy corresponds to the degree of agency an entity has with a transitive verb as contrasted with the degree to which that entity may be the patient of a transitive verb. The relationship of the entity to the verb takes one of three syntactico-semantic forms: intransitive subject, transitive subject, and transitive object. Each language is addressed separately. The analysis of Rejang looks at the relevance of the hierarchy to transitive objects. A similar kind of conditioning is seen in the interaction between the two passive constructions of Bahasa Indonesia. Discussion of Tagalog focuses on use of the object hierarchy in analysis and interpretation of the case system. The hierarchy approach is seen as providing a fruitful semantic framework for a wide variety of facts in Western Austronesian languages. (Contains 11 references.) (MSE)