GUEST,theridge: I agree with your assessment.

My father used "ary" and "nary" although in his dialect the pronunciation came out "ear a" and "near a" (spelling phonetically).

He'd say to me, "I went to git me a cookie an' they wadn't near a one in the jar!" This usage emphasized his surprise and disgust, because he correctly deduced that I had eaten all the cookies! Others might have said, "There wasn't a single one!"

If it had been something he didn't care so much about, he probably would have said, "They wadn't none."

He was from western Kentucky.