Or is that what halfings are?
Half-dwarves are a staple of Dark Sun and both half-dwarves and half gnomes get some mention in Dragonlance.
Because no proper human would ever fornicate with disgusting dwarves and gnomes!
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I could just make something up for you.
Gnomes aren't material metabolizing creatures. They need to eat, drink and sleep purely for the sensation of the activity rather than the physical sustenance. That being the case, their biology is wholly incompatible with material metabolizing creatures. In theory, a gnome female could clone herself by experiencing the sensation of reproduction with another creature, but they are loathe to create something that's merely a duplicate of another.
Dwarves are only granted souls at the age of 20 and before then exist as little more than animals. Half dwarves are never granted souls, these vacant creatures attract wandering spirits, animating energies, and are the subject of numerous necromantic practices.
There you go. I don't think there's an official why.
Halflings are called so because they're half the size of humans; a faint echo the hobbits that inspired them.
There are some arbitrary reasons why, in the main Pathfinder setting, there are no half-dwarves/gnomes/halflings. Basically "blah blah blah maybe with the right magic."
Also, do half-elves who are half-drow rather than "normal" elves exist?
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Also, do half-elves who are half-drow rather than "normal" elves exist?
There’s alternate racial qualities for drow half elves, so that’s official.
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Muls were pretty cool, I'll admit that.
J
The long and short of it is that the people in charge of the setting don't want a lot of cross-species interbreeding, and so don't include it where it's not warranted.
In my homebrew I rationalize this via "Dwarves simply aren't very fecund- Dwarf children are rare and are always the product of two Dwarf parents." Also gnomes are from another plane of reality.
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Don't want a lot of cross-species interbreeding?
I guess that is why we have half-elves, half-orcs, ifrit, oread, sylph, undine, teifling, aasimar, skinwalkers, fetchlings, and probably a few others I'm not thinking of right away.
Not to mention the Racial Heritage feat, which allows humans to have ancestry in common with any other humanoid race. Basically makes a human half-anything. I have a 100% PFS legal 'half-gnome' illusionist I really like.
I have also seen homebrew versions of numerous other mixed race options over the years. Stuff like Halfling/Gnome hybrids, Orc/Elf hybrids, etc.
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Personal Rule for half-X races in my game.
Look at both parents
1: gain the better vision trait (Dark > Low Vision)
2: use the mother's size to determine child's size
3: Child has the slower of the land speed between parents
4: child gains 1/2 any climb, swim, or fly speeds unless both parents have that speed (then use the lower speed and maneuverability).
5: count the number of race's features. Select the a number of race features equal to the race with the fewest additional features. Race features must be divided at most 60/40 (preferred 50/50 for races with even features) from both parents.
5b: If the race has a negative trait, child gains that trait in addition to the above chosen traits (Half-dhampir are only healed by negative energy for instance)
6: Racial attribute becomes +2 to any stat
7: Both parents languages are valid options w/ high int at character creation
8: They count as both species for feats, magic items, and such but may lack the features necessary to select some of these feats and options.
For instance, crossing a Grippli and a Human leaves you with a small or medium creature with darkvision, a 10ft climb speed, 2 racial features (choice of Camouflage, Swampstride, Weapon Familiarity, Bonus Feat, or Skilled) a +2 to any stat, and a very hard childhood as a weird not-frog. This half-grippli could then swap out any racial features they took for valid options, like trading Camouflage into Jumper, just like a normal member of their "species"
Sure, sometimes folks come into my home games playing as a human with bonuses but even then I still win as a GM when folks think they've managed to build some kind of uber-race. Their bonuses are relatively small over the course of the game while I've managed to get them into playing a non-human which gives me more room to tell interesting stories.
The official reason for why there are no half-gnomes in Pathfinder is that gnomes are from the First World and so unable to reproduce with members of species from the Material Plane. I'm not sure why that makes them unable to crossbreed with Material Plane species (it would seem to contradict the existence of the fey bloodline), but it is the official, canon answer.
As for dwarves, I'm not sure what the official reason is, but am willing to take an educated guess. Dwarven culture on Golarion has a long practice of arranged marriages, is extremely traditionalist, and at times moderately xenophobic. Because of this, most dwarves would likely never even consider a non-dwarf as a potential sexual partner. Even "adventuring dwarves" who do not fully conform to traditional dwarven societal norms are likely to hold a similar opinion. Dwarves who completely reject their culture and take non-dwarf lovers would be rare enough that producing a half-dwarf would be such a rare occurrence as to be near unique.
That said, there are settings like Dark Sun with half-dwarves, and Dragonlance did mention half-kender (which are basically gnomes) a few times. This is a tabletop game. If you want half-gnomes, half-dwarves, half-halflings, half-warforged, half-driders, or half-anythings, just make it up yourself.
Half-dwarves are kobolds, and half-gnomes are goblins.
There. Now you know their darkest, most embarrassing secret. ...a secret they will kill to keep....)
In JRR Tolkein's writings there were half-elves and a half-orc but not half-dwarves. Tradition being what it is, some books and games written 70+ years on have no truck with half-dwarves. Gnomes were magic dwarves when first mentioned in AD&D IIRC.