"trigger the question" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to indicate that someone has asked a question, or to suggest that a question should be asked. For example, "The statement triggered the question: How did this happen?".
"All you have to do is trigger the question and let it roll".
I want to instil reactions in the visitor which hopefully will trigger the question 'Why am I reacting this way?' It's a shared concern and a responsibility I feel.
Referring to the current archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby's recent statements on wanting to compete with payday lender Wonga, he said: "If the church or some of its representatives make remarks on matters of public interest, it can trigger the question where does that come from?
Yet the public gesture and clouds people exhale are still eye-catching enough to trigger the questions, "What's that?
That triggered the question whether there were also visceral experiences or physiological states that could make people more controlled rather than more impulsive.
Three serious accidents occurred in three dynamite manufacturing plants within three European countries during a relatively short time period triggering the question of effective external learning.
The concentration of fishing effort in the boundary of this area triggered the question of a potential negative effect of seabird bycatch in such area.
That certainly has embarrassed President Francois Hollande and has triggered the question of who knew what and may still lead to a government reshuffle or more.
This triggers the question: are these failures in wetland governance purely induced by factors exogenous to Ramsar-based institutions or are they manifestations of conceptual drawbacks within Ramsar conceptual framework.
This overlap triggers the question regarding its contribution to the development of students' cross-curricular problem-solving competence (Abd-El-Khalick et al. [2004]; Bassok and Holyoak [1993]; Hiebert et al. [1996]).
Yet, following the 911 terrorist attack on American soils in 2001, former US President George Bush had to ask "Why do they hate us?" a The US sub-prime crisis ultimately triggered the question of whether liberal democracy should be the universal norm of governances.
