You didn’t bind all your bindings here
$sql = "UNIX_TIMESTAMP(publicationDate) AS publicationDate
FROM comments WHERE articleid = :art
ORDER BY some LIMIT :numRows";
$st = $conn->prepare( $sql );
$st->bindValue( ":art", $art, PDO::PARAM_INT );
You’ve declared a binding called :numRows but you never actually bind anything to it.