I am not sure I understand this: ὄταν λέγωμεν φέρε εἰπεῖν ἴππον παρὰ τὸ ἰέναι τοῖς ποσιν και ανθρωπον παρα το ανω την ωπα, τουτ’ εστιν τουσ οφθαλμουσ ανω δυνασθαι θεωρειν.
The meaning is probably something like this: when we say, for instance, that the horse with respect to going by legs, and man with respect to the upper part of his face, that is, with respect of looking with his eyes from the upper part. are naturally disposed (understood from the preceding αρμοδιως κειμενον.
παρα το is a standard formula for introducing etymological derivation, X is “from” Y.
This proffers “ιππος from ιεναι ποσι [to go with the feet], and ανθρωπος from ανω ωπα, i.e. the eyes, able to θεωρειν up.” [up+watch+face] Such factitious etymologies are philologically preposterous but were very popular and some of them very early.
I have found this meaning for para in LS but it provides no examples. except this one: 7. in Gramm. it marks the deriv. of one word from another, Schaf Schol. Ap. Rh. 2. 624. How late is this usage? Is it Platonic?
Socrates gives a similar sort of gloss for ἄνθρωπος in Cratylus in 399. “ἀναθρῶν ἃ ὄπωπε.” Although there is no etymological significance to any of these derivations, I don’t think that we know enough about the aesthetic elements of word propagation to completely dismiss them. Some syllables sound good for a meaning, some don’t, and unlike the purely genetic etymological heritage, that particular part of word uptake would be based on deep association patterns with the rest of the language – exactly the sort of thing that is investigated, perhaps childishly, in Cratylus.
Anyway, it just so happens that he uses παρά right there in an interesting way to describe what he’s doing with the word:
πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ τὸ τοιόνδε δεῖ ἐννοῆσαι περὶ ὀνομάτων, ὅτι πολλάκις ἐπεμβάλλομεν γράμματα, τὰ δ’ ἐξαιροῦμεν, παρ’ ὃ βουλόμεθα ὀνομάζοντες, καὶ τὰς ὀξύτητας μεταβάλλομεν.
They’ve added and removed letters next to (παρά) what they want to ὀνομάζειν, which I take as τὸ “ἀναθρῶν ἃ ὄπωπε”, and ἄνθρωπος is the result.