You can specify the mysql sql_mode
with a query like
SET SESSION sql_mode = 'xxx'
where xxx is one of the valid sql modes.
There is an ansi
sql mode, which makes MySQL behave more like a standard compliant DBMS. Although it is just "more like" not "as".
You can read about the possible sql modes in the manual. The combined sql modes are the interesting ones.
There is also a manual page dedicated to standards compliance, which names sql_mode="ansi"
as one option.
I do not know of a way to achieve something similar with pure PDO and/or without this setting.