She grew up in Italy/She has grown up in Italy.

[JaneGothic]

We use Present Perfect to express an action that started and finished at some time in the past when time is not indicated (use the Past Simple if time is indicated)

It might be a stupid question, but why do we say She grew up in Italy, not She has grown up in Italy ? No time is mentioned. I thought it's because it is a one-time action that can not be repeated again even though she might be still alive, but I am not sure whether it explains it

 

[Annabel Lee]

. . . why do we say She grew up in Italy, not She has grown up in Italy ?

Great question. Interestingly, if you dropped in Italy, the sentence would work:

She has grown up.​

​

Or you could keep in Italy and change from the present-perfect simple to the present-perfect progressive:

She has been growing up in Italy.​

​

But I agree that your example doesn't work (except perhaps in a very special context, like starting college, where the growing up has technically just finished). Not to be vague, but there seems to be some kind of deep aspectual issue with it. The fact that it concerns something that, barring time travel, can only happen once in a person's lifetime is, I think, a big part of the puzzle.

 

[jutfrank]

When a speaker uses the past simple, such as in She grew up in Italy, the aspect shows that she's conceiving the verb grew up as having a time frame that ended in past time. It's the simplest way to say that something happened in the past, and that that past time is now 'distant' in the speaker's mind. A past simple sentence doesn't always need to include a place or time phrase, and as far as I'm concerned it's not crucially important whether the action was one-time or repeatable. What determines the choice of aspect is that there's a simple past event.

With present perfect the time frame always leads up to the present moment; the aspect closes the distance and says something relevant to the present time, even though the action itself is in the past. This is why a specific closed past time marker doesn't make sense in a past simple sentence.

She has grown up in Italy

I think the issue with this is the challenge of thinking up a context where it could work, but still I think it could be done with a bit of force. The inclusion of place phrases in present perfect sentences is rare because it doesn't usually match with the aspect, which is to say something about the present more than the past.