In Tupi-Guarani languages, referential hierarchies have proven valuable for analyzing differential patterns of marking objects in transitive sentences (Jensen, 1990) for a comparative view). Unlike other languages of the family, Nheengatu (Amazonian lingual geral) treats speech-acts participants and 3rd person in transitive sentences the same. Nheengatu further differentiates itself by its innovative use of referential hierarchies in the ditranstive constructions: referential effects lead to a split in the form of marking goals/recepients. Additionally, the marking of goals/recepients may also be associated with the expression of purposive modality. This paper describes the patterns used for indicating goals/recepients, and analyzes the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors correlated to each of the possible constructions.