My oldest son had just finished an extended holiday stay prior to moving to a new

state,a new job,and the next chapter in his life.

以上句子应该改为下面的句子

My oldest son had just finished an extended holiday staying prior to moving to a new

state,a new job,and the next chapter in his life.

=Staying prior to moving to a new state,a new job,and the next chapter in his life, my oldest son had just finished an extended holiday

=Before moving to a new state,a new job,and the next chapter in his life, my oldest son had just finished an extended holiday

（staying prior to moving a new state, a new job, and the next chapeter in his life 在句中作时间状语，相当于 before moving to a new state....)

参考译文：我的大儿子在移居到另一个州，换一份新工作并开始人生的新篇章之前，刚刚休完一段长假。

本句中stay prior是什么意思，做句子的什么成分呢？如果是这么短的定语，为什么会后置呢？谢谢老师了

回答如下：

以上句子应该把stay  prior 改为非谓语动词 staying prior 形式，因为句子没有连词，不能出现2个谓语动词。staying prior to 就是现在分词作状语结构。（备注句子谓语为had  finished)

(1)prior  adj.  优先的; 占先的; 在…之前;

(2)（be/stay） prior to 在…之前 相当与 介词before 

(3)staying prior to... 为现在分词作时间状语

补充回答

第2种理解就是像刘老师所说的，把stay 当作名词看待的花，就是和修饰成分即分词“形容词extended”+“名词holiday”一起“an extended holiday stay”作谓语动词"had finished"的宾语。如果把"stay"当名词使用，“语法上是没有问题的，但是在语义上解释太牵强了不符合句子意思表达”这也是我没有按照这种方式解释的原因。如造成不便，还请谅解。特别声明，我当然知道stay 不仅可以作行为动词，系动词，而且还可以作名词使用。 (以上仅代表个人看法，不一定正确，如有不妥或者不正确，还请指正，谢谢！）