Egophoric reference is defined as reference to speech act participants and generic reference. As shown by adult conversational data from Swedish, English, and Spanish, and longitudinal data from one Swedish child, the majority of all animate arguments of verbs in conversation are egophoric. This percentage varies quite considerably between different types of subject and between subjects and objects. Positions representing essentially animate roles — agents, experiencers, and recipients — have a high incidence of egophoric reference and a high egophoric/animate ratio. Positions allowing both animate and inanimate reference have relatively low egophoric percentages, absolutely and relative to animates. The explanation of these patterns is not to be found not so much in the way in which information is presented but rather in the intrinsic content of the information that is conveyed. The presence/absence of an essentially animate argument may be a more fundamental distinction for a taxonomy of predication types than transitivity.